


Harry Potter and the Secrets of Konoha

by BackslashEcho



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Basically the beginning of Naruto, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Friendship, Gen, Lots of villains, Minor Original Character(s), Post - Goblet of Fire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 14:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 84,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1943907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BackslashEcho/pseuds/BackslashEcho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of sending Harry back to Privet Drive to sit on his thumbs after Voldemort's rebirth, Dumbledore sends him, Ron, and Hermione to a village called Konohagakure to learn how to defend themselves.</p><p>Harry & Co are 14 (end of fourth year).<br/>Naruto & Co are 12-13 (beginning of canon).<br/>Pairings (if any) are undecided, but will not be central.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue -- Hogwarts

**Author's Note:**

> This is a common enough crossover, and I've read a few different ones that were mostly pretty silly. This, too, is probably going to be pretty silly. I don't have a real end-goal in mind, it's just supposed to be a fun crossover, where I get to see my favorite characters interact with each other.
> 
> I'm going to be handwaving things so hard you'll feel the breeze, so feel free to ask if you've got a question. Have no fear, there is no end to the reasons I can pull out of my... _kamui_.
> 
> This would probably have been called The Wizard Hidden In The Leaves but there's already a story by that name. It's a very different story, but I don't want to cause undue confusion.
> 
> What else of note...  
> As the tags indicate, Shiranui Genma is going to be a major character. I've buffed him slightly from canon (at least according to Narutopedia), but he's not a terribly important character in canon, so I don't think it's going to make much of a difference. Essentially, he's now on par with most of the other Jonin-sensei, rather than in the next league down.  
> If they get any screen time, the characters of Yuuhi Kurenai and her squad are probably going to be familiar to any fans of S'TarKan's excellent "Team 8". I don't know how obvious it will be, though, since she's only in charge of her canon team (rather than trading Kiba for Naruto as she did in "Team 8"), and they're all probably just going to be in the background a lot of the time.  
> I'm not planning to bring over any other HP characters at the moment, but I suppose that could change if I have a good enough idea.
> 
> Enjoy the ride.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry, Ron, and Hermione are called to the Headmaster's office, where Professor Dumbledore introduces them to another "Professor"; a man named Sarutobi Hiruzen, who claims to be a ninja.
> 
> Adapted from chapters near the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

When he looked back, even a month later, Harry Potter found he had only scattered memories of the days following the Third Task, and the ordeal in the graveyard of Little Hangleton. It was as though he had been through too much to take in any more.

The recollections he did have were very painful. The worst, perhaps, was his meeting with the Diggorys. He didn’t know what he was going to say--how could he offer comfort to the people whose son had been murdered simply because he happened to be with Harry? They were very kind, however, and made it clear that they did not blame him for what had happened. On the contrary, both thanked him for returning Cedric’s body to them. 

Harry seized the sack of gold on the bedside table. The Minister of Magic had presented it to him as the official winner of the Triwizard Tournament, but Harry could never look at it without thinking that Cedric had deserved it far more than he did. He got a hot, sick feeling in his stomach whenever his eyes fell on the bag, and now he seized his chance to be rid of it. 

“You take this,” he told Mrs. Diggory. “It should've been Cedric’s; I mean, he got there first. You take it--”

But she backed away from him. “Oh no, it's yours, dear. We…we couldn’t accept that. You keep it.”

Still confined to his bed in the Hospital Wing by Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, Harry could only watch the Diggorys walk away with their arms around each other, and sigh.

Harry’s next visitors arrived just after lunch the following day, levitating with both their wands a sparkling clean--though clearly freshly stolen--toilet seat. Harry roared with laughter at Fred’s and George’s attempt to cheer him up. Madam Pomfrey, however, was less amused, and vanished it with a wave of her own wand before giving the freckled, redheaded Twins a blistering lecture on hospital hygiene. 

As the two turned to leave, Harry stopped them and said, “Here, take this.”

Before either of them could protest, Harry picked up the sack of prize money and shoved it into George’s hands. 

“What?” said Fred, looking flabbergasted.

“Take it,” Harry repeated firmly. “I don't want it.”

“You're mental,” said George, trying to push it back at Harry.

“No, I'm not,” said Harry. “Take it, and get inventing. It's for the joke shop. Think of it as an investment, if you like. _Take it._ If you don't, I'm throwing it down the drain, because I don't want it and I don't need it. But I could do with a few laughs. We could all do with a few laughs. I've got a feeling we're going to need them more than usual before long.”

“Harry,” said George weakly, weighing the money bag in his hands, “There's got to be a thousand Galleons in here.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, grinning. “Just don't tell your mum where you got it…”

“Harry--” Fred began again, but Harry had had enough, and he pulled out his wand.

“Look,” he said flatly, “take it, or I'll hex you. I know some good ones now.”

* * *

Harry returned to Gryffindor Tower that afternoon with a smile on his face, which only grew wider when he saw his two best friends waiting for him. Ron Weasley, the twins’ younger brother, was just as red-haired as they were, though he was taller and far more freckly. He was playing a game of Wizard’s Chess with Hermione Granger, their brilliant, bushy-brown-haired other best friend. Brilliant she might have been, but Hermione was not much of a strategist, and Ron was, as usual, decimating her on the chessboard. Spotting Harry coming into the Common Room, she promptly gave the match up as a bad job and pushed the board away as Harry sat down.

From what Hermione and Ron told him, Headmaster Dumbledore had spoken to the school at lunchtime. He had merely requested that they leave Harry alone, that nobody ask him questions or badger him to tell the story of what had happened in the maze. Most people, he noticed, were skirting him in the corridors, avoiding his eyes. Some whispered behind their hands as he passed.

He guessed that many of them had believed Rita Skeeter's libelous articles in the Daily Prophet about how disturbed and possibly dangerous Harry was. Perhaps they were formulating their own theories about how Cedric had died. He found he didn't care very much. 

He spent an enjoyable afternoon with Ron and Hermione, talking about other things, or letting him sit in silence while they played chess. He felt as though all three of them had reached an understanding they didn't need to put into words; that each was waiting for some sign, some word, of what was going on outside Hogwarts -- and that it was useless to speculate about what might be coming until they knew anything for certain. 

The only time they touched upon the subject was when Ron told Harry about a meeting Mrs. Weasley had had with Dumbledore just before he had left the Hospital Wing--probably at the same time as his argument with the Twins, Harry thought.

“She went to ask him if you could come straight to us this summer,” he said. “But he said he’s got other plans, and once those are settled, you’ll still have to go back to the Dursleys, at least at first.”

“Other plans? I would’ve figured the Dursleys _were_ his other plans. Did she tell you why?”

“She just said Dumbledore's got his reasons,” said Ron, shaking his head and shrugging. “She was looking a bit resigned, but she tried to hide it when she saw me.”

* * *

The leaving feast was that night, though the grand banquet was somber this year. Every student and every table was draped in black in memory of their fallen peer, Cedric Diggory. The headmaster led the Hall in a toast, first to Cedric’s memory, and then to Harry for returning his body. To Harry’s surprise, Dumbledore made Harry’s toast a public announcement that the dark wizard Lord Voldemort had returned, but on reflection, he had to agree. The students deserved to know the truth.

As dessert was served, Professor Dumbledore met Harry’s eye. A moment later, a House Elf came bustling along the bench to hand Harry a tiny scroll, as well as one to Ron and Hermione on either side of him. Harry slit his open with a tap of his wand, and recognized Dumbledore’s narrow, loopy handwriting:

_Harry  
Please meet me in my office after dinner, along with the youngest Mister Weasley and Miss Granger._

As soon as he’d finished reading it, the slip of parchment dissolved into nothing between his fingers.

Harry wondered vaguely what Dumbledore could want from the three of them. He had already picked over Harry’s memories of the night Voldemort had returned, and had sent Sirius and Hagrid off on secret missions. Though, Sirius had promised to return soon, so perhaps that was what the meeting was about?

He shook his head. He would find out soon enough. He, Ron, and Hermione stood up from the table and left; the eyes of the entire Hall following Harry as he went. He breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed behind him. Even after enduring it for years, he still didn’t much like being gawked at.

The three of them didn’t speak as they climbed the marble staircase, and then more staircases--even some hidden behind sliding walls or tapestries--to reach the headmaster’s office, and stopped at the end of a corridor on the seventh floor of the castle. The Headmaster’s Tower was visible out of the window, and directly to their left was the stone gargoyle which concealed the hidden stairs to Dumbledore’s office. They all stared at it.

They had left the Great Hall before Dumbledore had even gotten up from the table, and none of them knew the password. Harry groaned.

“Er, Professor Dumbledore _did_ request us to come to his office,” said Hermione uncertainly. “So it’s probably--”

But she was interrupted by a low, gravelly voice which issued directly from the gargoyle’s open mouth. “The headmaster will see you now.” The stone gargoyle sprang to life, and slid aside as the wall split open behind it, revealing the revolving stone stairs leading up to Dumbledore’s office. Harry had been here on a few occasions, so Ron and Hermione followed him up.

Harry had never figured out how revolving a spiral staircase could bring him to the top, since the stairs did not appear to be moving _upward_ , but nevertheless they found themselves a moment later standing outside the door to the Headmaster’s study.

Harry raised his hand to knock on the door, but before it landed, Dumbledore’s voice called “Come in, Harry.”

Harry glanced at Ron, who shrugged, and Hermione, who nodded encouragingly, then opened the door.

The headmaster’s study was a beautiful, high-ceilinged, circular room lined with bookshelves and decorated with many noisy silver instruments. Harry didn’t know what any of them were for, but they were puffing and humming and in one case emitting an odd hooting sound. On a golden perch beside the door stood Fawkes, Professor Dumbledore’s phoenix. He let out a bright, soft, musical note when he spotted Harry, and Harry smiled back at the bird.

Dumbledore was seated behind the headmaster’s desk, with three empty chairs facing him. On the same side of the desk, in a grand chair off to the left, in front of the window, there sat another man who looked like he might be almost as old as Dumbledore. The stranger was a short man, with a short, pointy grey beard and a liver spot on his left cheek and smile lines etched deeply around his eyes. He was wearing a red robe, with an odd white sash wound around his shoulders and waist, and a wide hat that was both red and white. A symbol Harry didn’t recognize adorned the front of it. It certainly didn’t look like any of the ones that he had sometimes seen Hermione studying for her Ancient Runes class. Harry, Ron, and Hermione nodded politely to the stranger, who inclined his head in return.

“Thank you for arriving promptly,” said Dumbledore. He was wearing red robes as well, a few shades brighter than the other man’s, closer to the crimson of a phoenix’s feathers, and patterned with shimmering golden flames around the wrists and hem. He smiled benignly at them all, but Harry thought he detected a certain sharpness in the corners of Dumbledore’s eyes, a tautness through his cheeks, which had not been there before Voldemort’s return.

“I asked you three here so that you could be introduced to the man who will be helping me to protect and educate you for the summer, at least.” Dumbledore gestured at the short stranger, who smiled.

“Greetings,” he said in a quiet, measured voice, faintly coloured by an accent that Harry couldn’t place. “My name is Sarutobi Hiruzen. I am the Sandaime…no, what is the word in your language? Third. The Third Hokage.”

Dumbledore continued, “As you may recall, if you have ever read the back of my chocolate frog card, I currently hold the position of Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. I do not expect to hold that position much longer, in light of Minister Fudge’s and the rest of the Ministry’s collective reaction to Voldemort’s return. They are determined to shut their eyes and plug their ears, and I expect they will go to any lengths to silence not just myself, but Harry as well. There is therefore no time to lose if I wish to arrange this, and so I requested that the Hokage come here to meet you all. 

“You see, I have a proposition for all of you, to provide you with an opportunity you will find both entertaining and instructive. In light of Lord Voldemort’s return, the Wizarding World is unlikely to remain secure for very long. Indeed, the events of these past few years have demonstrated to us that even Hogwarts is not entirely secure…and usually, of course, you three found yourselves at the center of the problem.”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all shifted uncomfortably, but Dumbledore’s eyes were twinkling.

“Therefore,” he said, “I have arranged alternate lodgings for the three of you over the summer, in the hope that it will keep the three of you safe and secure, and put you in an excellent position to be better able to defend yourselves in the event of any further…events.”

“Where, Professor?” Harry asked.

“In the village of Konohagakure,” said Dumbledore, “Which would translate into English as something like ‘The Village Hidden Among the Leaves’. It is very far away, in a country locally known only as the land of Fire. I think it presents a very unique opportunity for the three of you. You see, the village is one not of wizards, but of shinobi.”

“Shinobi?” asked Hermione, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar word.

The Hokage answered. “In your language, ‘ninja’.”

Hermione stared at the stranger, and Harry at Dumbledore, both their jaws hanging. Ron looked between the two of them, confused. Finally, Ron broke the silence.

“Er…what’s a ninja?”

Harry opened his mouth, but couldn’t think what to say. Professor Dumbledore forestalled him.

“Broadly speaking, ‘Ninja’ is the word used for someone who performs what we would call ‘spells’ through the use of hand signs, rather than with a magic wand. The actual process is a little more complicated, but I think that will do for now…at least until you are able to get some firsthand experience with the technique. These are not spells exactly; they are called jutsu, which I believe would translate more closely to ‘technique’.” He glanced at the Hokage, who nodded, before continuing. “At their basis, they work quite differently to the spells and charms with which you are familiar. More to the point, I believe that they are different enough that they will not register with the Trace as spells being cast.”

“The Trace, sir?” asked Harry.

“The Trace is a charm placed upon all magical newborns, which detects nearby magical activity and alerts the Ministry of Magic. Because it is locational, it can of course be fooled,” said Dumbledore. “For instance, recall the time that you, Harry, were accused of performing underage magic in your Aunt’s and Uncle’s house, when in actuality the spell was performed by another.”

Harry nodded.

“House Elves’ magic is different enough to be free of certain of the strictures that govern Wizards’ magic,” Dumbledore went on. “Witness their ability to apparate within the grounds of Hogwarts, which no wizard can do within our wards. However, it is also similar enough to trip the Trace. Ninjutsu, however, should not be, and I would like to test that before we go any further.”

Dumbledore rose, and picked up one of the humming silver instruments. It looked a little like a gyroscope or sneakoscope, but folded somehow into a lemniscate shape, like a figure-eight. It didn’t look as if it could possibly turn, the way it was designed. When Dumbledore’s hand touched it, the instrument stopped humming and lay silent, glowing a faint blue colour. He handed it to Harry, who took it gingerly. When the instrument passed to Harry’s hand, the glow changed to a soft green.

“That glow indicates that a Trace is placed upon the one holding it. It will react differently if the magic of the Trace is activated. Cast a spell, Harry.”

Harry transferred the instrument to his left hand and pulled out his wand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the Hokage was watching him minutely. 

Feeling a little self-conscious under the stranger’s scrutiny, Harry said, “Wingardium Leviosa,” waved his wand with a characteristic motion, and pointed it with a flourish at the quill on Professor Dumbledore’s desk. The quill rose into the air as the Hover Charm took effect. At the same time, the silver instrument in his hand began to glow red and emit a whirring noise, as if it were spinning very fast indeed. He let the quill float back down to the desk, and the instrument lay quiescent and faintly green once more.

“Miss Granger, if you would kindly levitate the quill as well?” said Dumbledore. Harry looked intently at the instrument he still held as Hermione, too, cast a Hover charm. Again, the moment the spell took was completed, the instrument began to glow brightly red, and whirred with a noise like a contented cat, and again, it fell silent when the spell stopped.

“Thank you, Miss Granger. Now then, Master Hokage?”

The stranger stood up from his chair, smiling. All three of the children watched him intently. The old man’s hands flashed together three times, in complicated-looking hand positions, and he said quietly, “Bunshin no Jutsu.” There was a shimmer, and suddenly there was an identical copy of the old stranger standing right next to the first one. Another shimmer, and another copy appeared on his other side. All three of them smiled gently at the confused students. 

“It is a simple splitting…no, the word would be ‘clone’, I think…a simple clone jutsu,” said the Hokage in his soft voice. He raised a hand and passed it straight through the shoulder of the clone on his left. “They have no presence, it is merely an illusion.”

“As you can see, the technique did not trigger a response from the Trace,” said Dumbledore. “Can we be more certain, though, Hokage? Can you possibly use a technique requiring a large amount of power?”

The Hokage seemed to think it over for a moment, then nodded. His two clones faded from sight as he stepped forward and opened the window, drawing the curtains carefully back. His hands formed several more seals this time, before he said “Katon: Karyuu Endan no Jutsu”. Then he raised his right hand to his mouth, puffed out his cheeks, and blew out of the window. 

An enormous plume of fire erupted from his mouth, so hot that Harry, Ron, and Hermione all flinched back from the window, even though they were several feet away. After a moment, the stream of flames disappeared, and the Hokage carefully shut the window again. 

The whole time, there had been no reaction from the silver instrument Harry was still holding. Dumbledore gestured for Harry to return it to its place on the small table as the Hokage sat back down.

“I am satisfied,” said Dumbledore, “and I hope that you will be, too, that you will not be found by your Traces whilst you are in Konohagakure. At least, as long as you do not use your wands yourselves. I will not confiscate them, for safety’s sake, but I implore each of you not to resort to your wand except in the last defense of your life. I think it would be…unwise…to draw the Ministry’s attention to the Hidden Continent, particularly now--if Voldemort does not already have spies within the Ministry, he will very soon.

“Now, I have spoken with each of your parents,” Dumbledore continued, looking from Ron to Hermione, his eyes twinkling, “and all of them have given their consent for you to accompany Harry on his…trip to study abroad. Sirius also gave his permission as your godfather, Harry, and as the Headmaster of Hogwarts I am considered your guardian for magical purposes, since Sirius’ appointment was disregarded when he was arrested.” 

The twinkle in his eyes seemed to dim as he went on. “Your Aunt and Uncle also granted their permission when I asked them, Harry, though I don’t believe I shall repeat their exact words. They did assent to you returning at least once before you come back to school, however. In fact, I must insist that you do,” he added, correctly reading the look on Harry’s face.

“There is only one issue which I foresee being a potential problem--the language barrier. There is no time for you all to learn a new language. Instead, you will have to make do with a charm.” He pulled out his wand and waved it in an expansive gesture that took in all three of them, saying as he did so, “ _Interpretantus_.” 

Harry felt as though cotton wool had been wrapped around his head, pressed against his open eyes, and rammed into his ears and throat, and then roughly pulled away again. He gasped, as did Ron and Hermione, and scrubbed at his face.

“It may be some time before the charm fully takes effect,” said Dumbledore, “But you should be able to understand others when they speak, and they will understand you. Eventually, I believe, you will even be able to read in that language. In the meantime, however, the three of you will be leaving Hogwarts with the Hokage.”

“When?” asked Harry.

“At once,” Dumbledore replied. “Aside from your wands and Harry’s glasses, you will not need any of your possessions or clothes from here. The Hokage and I have worked out the exchange rate from galleons to ryou, the local currency of the Hidden Continent, and we will provide you sufficient money to purchase new garb and supplies. I expect that, soon enough, you will have your own way to make some more money. Now, it is time to be off!”

“But how are we getting…wherever we’re going?” Hermione stammered.

“The Hokage came to us by traditional methods, but it would be impossible to conceal you all on the way back. Instead, Fawkes will be taking you there.” Dumbledore gestured, and the phoenix fluttered across the room toward them. At that exact moment, another of the silver instruments let out a low, sharp whistle. Harry couldn’t see without turning around, but the sound seemed to originate from near the door. 

“There is no time to lose!” Dumbledore cried. “Come!”

Fawkes was hovering in front of the three of them, waving his long golden tailfeathers in their faces. Just as they had done two years previously, when Fawkes had lifted them all out of the Chamber of Secrets deep beneath the school, the three of them grasped handfuls of his tailfeathers. At a gesture from Dumbledore, the Hokage did the same.

“Now, Master Hokage, concentrate hard upon your destination, and upon your wish for Fawkes to take you there,” said Dumbledore. “And be gone!”

There was a flash of fire, and the four of them vanished together with Fawkes. When Professor McGonagall and a scowling Cornelius Fudge entered a moment later, they found the headmaster alone in his office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to point out inconsistencies, especially in how characters address each other.
> 
> All the Eastern characters should be written and should always address others with the family (or clan) name first: e.g. Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, Shiranui Genma, Potter Harry.  
> The Western characters will "slip up" sometimes in their internal monologue, and that's okay. It's probably intentional, in cases like that, since they will still be thinking in English. If they're speaking among themselves, there's no reason for them to say things the Eastern way. If they're around Eastern characters though, the translation magic should kick in and their dialogue should follow the Eastern phrasing. 
> 
> On the other hand, even in Harry Potter, it's custom to refer to people you aren't close friends with by their surname (as Harry and Malfoy do to each other during the entire series), so maybe it won't be as big a deal as I think.  
> (Besides, hopefully they'll all become friends and they'll call each other by their given names anyway...)
> 
> Brit-picking and Japan-picking are encouraged, if you're familiar enough to do so. For instance, another thing I'm bound to screw up is honorifics, so please point out any problems with those as well. I don't really expect any Latin-picking, but if you're fluent and you think I've screwed up, please tell me.


	2. Team 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry, Ron, and Hermione arrive in Konoha and get settled...and discover who their Jonin-sensei will be.

Phoenix travel was a sensation entirely unlike travelling by other means. There was nothing like the crushing sensation of Apparition Ron had described, remembering the time he had been brought Side-Along with his father to work. There was no feeling of movement, of the rotation of Floo travel or the sudden jerk of a portkey. When a phoenix brought you along with it, you caught on fire--you definitely felt yourself catching fire, even though there was no pain--and instead of the fire whipping you away or consuming you, you became a part of it. You became one with the fire, which went out in one place and blazed up in another. It might not sicken the stomach like portkeys or Apparition, but it was a rather unnerving experience nonetheless.

The room that greeted Harry when he opened his eyes was dimly-lit. The wall behind them was almost all windows, but it was obviously nighttime. He was disoriented by this--hadn’t it been just after dinner? It couldn’t possibly be this dark already. Ron and Hermione had staggered backward, as though they hadn’t landed as smoothly as he had. 

“My many humble thanks to you, Suzaku, Vermilion Bird, for returning us safely to my home,” said the Hokage, bowing deeply to the phoenix. Or at least, that was what Harry understood. He was certain that those had not been the words the Hokage had actually spoken, though. Fawkes let out another cry in reply, then vanished in another flicker of flame.

The Hokage turned to the three teenagers. “Welcome to Konohagakure,” he said, gesturing toward the windows behind the large desk. It was covered in different stacks of papers, and had a banner on the front with two strange symbols. One was similar to the symbol on the Hokage’s hat--though it looked more complicated Harry was certain it was from the same language. The other was rather different, a stylized, curving, hooklike shape, with a triangle on one end.

The village outside the windows was not what Harry had expected. Konohagakure was a village, certainly, but it was closer in size to a city. The buildings were mostly made of wood, and trees grew freely everywhere, even in the city’s streets, but almost of the buildings he could see had at least two stories, and many had more, and sprawling layouts to boot. If he had to guess, he would have said there had to be thousands, maybe tens of thousands of inhabitants in all those buildings.

His eyes tracked upward next, and he marvelled that he couldn’t seem to find any of the constellations he knew from his Astronomy classes…though he was forced to admit he might just be missing them in the unfamiliar sky.

“The time here does not correspond with that in your country,” said the Hokage from behind them. “I would estimate that we are still perhaps two hours from dawn.” 

There was the sound of the old man’s hands moving rapidly, and a light flared. When they turned around, he was holding a small oil lamp.

“There are things that will occupy me for tomorrow,” he said, “but I expect you must be tired. Come with me and I will arrange beds for you.”

The three of them followed him out of the office and down a dark hallway. They exited, and almost immediately Harry had the unmistakable feeling that they were being watched.

The Hokage must have noticed him suddenly stiffen, because he said calmly, “There is nothing to fear. We are under scrutiny by ANBU, because we are out late, and especially since we struck a light. However, there is no mandated curfew in Konoha, and you are with me.” He raised his voice a little, and said, “My guests and I are headed to my residence.” The sensation of being watched dropped away sharply, though it didn’t fully disappear.

They continued to follow the Hokage up the street, which had a slight grade, toward the largest and grandest of the buildings Harry could see. It was a large, round compound; a tall circular building with two circular towers perched upon it. Despite the lateness of the hour, there were two people standing by the door, one on either side. They looked like guards.

“Welcome back, Hokage-sama,” said the one on the left in what Harry thought was a haughty voice, though the man and his partner bowed both deferentially. He had a short, pointy beard, and wore an odd, high-collared jacket. A glint from the Hokage’s lamp reflected off the metal plate attached to the headband the guard was wearing, revealing a symbol etched into the steel. It was the same stylized swirl-and-triangle Harry had noticed on the Hokage’s desk.

“Good morning, Tatami-san,” replied the Hokage. “I will be emerging for another walk and some breakfast shortly, but my guests will be retiring to sleep now. Please continue to keep the premises secure.”

“Hai, Hokage-sama!” the guard barked, standing at attention again. The other guard merely nodded. In the light from the Hokage’s lamp, Harry saw small, sharp, dark eyes in a somber face, with a large weal or burn running across the bridge of his nose and down his left cheek. He looked like he wanted to add something, but chose to remain silent.

The Hokage led Harry, Ron, and Hermione past the guards, and up a flight of stairs into one of the towers they had seen from the outside. After about four flights, he opened a door and led them inside, flicking the light switch by the door as he did so. Harry was surprised to see that the village had electric lights, since Hogwarts itself had only torches, but was pleased nevertheless. Having grown up in the Muggle world, there was a sense of comfort afforded to him by electric lighting that he missed at school.

Looking around, he saw that they were in a spacious and apparently self-sufficient flat, with small kitchen area and an attached bathroom, as well as a sitting area with a couch and a bookshelf. Moreover, there were three beds ranged against the far wall.

“You may stay here for the present,” said the Hokage. “It is certain to be safe in my own home.”

He gestured toward the kitchenette, “There is food available if you are hungry and you are welcome to use these beds to sleep today. There is a sliding panel to conceal the bed nearest the corner, if you wish some privacy,” he added to Hermione. 

“When you are more rested, I will designate someone to assist you with your shopping. I hope that, in time, you will come to feel at home here in Konoha. For now, I will simply bid you good night.”

With that, he inclined his head and left before they could so much as thank him for his generosity…and before they could ask him any questions.

“Well…” said Harry, slowly, after a long pause. “I suppose…we’d better sleep then?” Hermione nodded.

“Wonder why he left so fast?” Ron wondered. “D’you think he just didn’t feel like telling us anything tonight, now that we’d got here?”

“Ron, he probably knew we were tired,” said Hermione. “He said to that guard downstairs that he was going to take a walk. As people get older, they can’t always sleep when they’re tired, and that often turns into restlessness. On the other hand, I’m exhausted. Aren’t you?” she inquired of Harry and Ron. Both nodded reluctantly.

“Let’s go to bed, then,” said Hermione, blushing slightly. “Er, you don’t mind if I _do_ pull that screen out, do you?”

“‘Course not,” said Harry. “I hope he’ll talk to us some more tomorrow though, eh Ron?”

“Yeah,” said Ron. “He reminds me a lot of Dumbledore. I’m not surprised they get along. Definitely hippogriffs of a feather.”

There didn’t seem to be anything more to say, so Ron shut off the lights, Harry pulled the curtain over the window, and Hermione dragged out the panel that the Hokage had pointed out, so that her bed was screened from view. They all climbed into bed, and said a weary “good night”, before dropping off to sleep, one by one.

* * *

The Hokage was as good as his word, thought Tatami Iwashi, as 'The Professor' emerged from his home, alone, after only a few minutes. He gazed toward the Hokage Monument, then toward the Academy, and nodded to Raidou to accompany him. 

“I leave you to keep watch on my guests, Iwashi.” Iwashi blinked at the more-familiar form of address. He had been worried earlier that the Hokage was displeased with him, when he called his last name instead. It now appeared, Iwashi reflected, that he was simply extending courtesy in front of the strangers. 

“I trust you will keep them safe,” the old man continued. 

“Hokage-sama!” Iwashi interrupted. He didn’t understand why Raidou hadn’t said anything earlier, strangers present or not. “There was a break-in earlier. Nobody saw who it was, but it is believed one of your sealing scrolls is missing and--”

“I am aware of it, and of the accusations that are flying around,” said the Hokage, shaking his head briefly before returning to his previous thread of conversation. “Have Aoba relieve you at dawn, and please remind Genma that I expect both him and Ebisu to join me today at the Genin deliberations. I expect we will be able to create at least three full new Genin teams today.”

At least three? Iwashi thought as he snapped a salute. Were there really that many little ones ready to graduate today? He saw the students fairly often, during the course of his guard duties. The newest generation of Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi was ready to graduate, of course, as well as the heirs of the Aburame, the Inuzuka, and the Hyuuga. The Uchiha prodigy was poised to finish at the top of the class, and Iwashi thought that the little pink-haired Haruno girl was probably ready as well. But that was only eight, not enough for even three full teams. None of the other students were skilled enough, especially that Uzumaki brat. _That_ one he could never see becoming a ninja, even if Iwashi was not such a fool as so many other villagers, to blame the boy for the destruction of the village twelve years prior. Uzumaki Naruto may be a brat and and irredeemable prankster, but Iwashi could not find it in himself to hate a boy who had been an infant when the Kyuubi had attacked, and the Yondaime had been died. Even if the demon fox _was_ sealed into Uzumaki’s body. Although, if the rumors flying around concerning last night’s break-in were true…

But all he said aloud was, “Hai, Hokage-sama!”

* * *

Harry woke up some time later, and was momentarily confused. He fumbled for his glasses, reaching for the small table that should be just to the right of his bed. It wasn’t there. He fell off the bed with a crash that jolted Ron awake. 

“Harry, are you okay?” his friend asked, concerned.

“Yeah,” Harry grimaced. “Have you seen my glasses?”

“They’re here, mate,” said Ron, holding them out along with Harry’s wand. Harry took them both, pushed his glasses onto his face and his wand up his sleeve, and looked around the small flat.

“I forgot…” he trailed off. “What time is it? How long did we sleep?”

“Dunno exactly. Maybe eight hours?” Ron said, nodding at the opposite wall, where there was a clock which read ten past two.

“Whatever time it is, I’m hungry,” declared Hermione, returning the sliding panel concealing her bed into the wall. “The Hokage said there was food in the fridge, let’s see.”

She crossed the room and opened the fridge, Harry on her heels. He reached past her and pulled out milk, eggs, and what looked like a rasher of streaky bacon, then retrieved flour and sugar from the cupboards. He banged a pan onto the stove and began frying the streaky bacon without a word. Ron and Hermione sat down at the table instead, glancing at each other awkwardly.

Harry met their eyes. “What? It’s not like I’m going to have to cook for the Dursleys this summer, so I might as well cook for us.”

While the bacon cooked, he began mixing the rest of the ingredients together for pancakes. Normally he wouldn’t have added sugar, but he didn’t see any syrup and thought that he ought to sweeten the batter somewhat.

His only moment of consternation came when, after he had divided the breakfast onto three plates for them, he looked all around the kitchen for utensils, finding nothing but knives suitable for chopping meat. Hermione joined the search after a moment, and then straightened up with a triumphant, “Aha!” She was holding a handful of long wooden sticks, which Harry had overlooked several times, and which he now realized must be chopsticks. 

They ate in silence, pondering what was to become of them today. After they’d finished, Harry collected their plates to clean them, Ron excused himself to the bathroom, and Hermione wandered over to the bookshelf. Cleaning the dishes didn’t take Harry very long, so he joined Hermione on the sofa, where she had sat down in frustration. He didn’t have to ask what was wrong he simply looked at her, eyebrow raised, and she gestured angrily at the books.

“I can’t read them!” She was nearly pouting. He glanced at the bookshelf and saw that, of course, the titles were all written in the same strange language of symbols as everything else in Konohagakure so far. Dumbledore had said eventually they would be able to read, but the charm must not have progressed far enough yet. One of the books on the shelf caught his eye, though he couldn’t have said why. He pulled it down anyway and began to thumb through it, stopping when he came across what looked like a map.

He’d never been very good at geography when he was in Muggle school, but this map certainly didn’t resemble any region of the world he was familiar with. In the center, he noticed a dot labeled by the same swirl-and-triangle he had seen on the Hokage’s desk and the guards’ headbands. Next to it, apparently labeling the whole country, was the same symbol that was on the Hokage’s hat. He put the book on the table and pointed it out to Hermione.

“This must be a map of where we are,” she said, in a voice wavering between scholarly curiosity and nervous excitement. “The swirling symbol must represent Konohagakure, so that shows us where we are. And Dumbledore said this country was called the Land of Fire, so I bet this symbol _means_ Fire.”

“You mean the old bloke has a hat that just says ‘Fire’ on it?” said Ron from behind them.

Harry, who was willing to accept pretty much anything, said, “Ron, you have a hat that just says ‘Cannons’ on it.”

“But that’s a quidditch team,” Ron said defensively.

Hermione, who was ignoring them both, said vaguely, “These symbols aren’t the same…”

“What do you mean?” asked Harry.

“I mean, they’re not the same sort of symbol. This one,” she indicated the symbol they had decided meant ‘Fire’, “looks like a Japanese or Chinese character. But this one,” here she pointed at the swirl-and-triangle of Konohagakure, “doesn’t. It’s too stylized; more like a pictogram.”

“A what?” said Ron, looking lost.

“A simplified picture of the thing it represents. Like this one,” here she indicated a symbol near the upper-left of the map, well outside the range of the Land of Fire. “It looks like two rocks. And this one,” pointing at the upper-right, “looks a bit like a cloud.”

“And there’s a musical note here, and that could be a waterfall…” said Harry. “So, what do you think Konohagakure’s is supposed to be?”

“A leaf, innit?” said Ron. They both looked at him. He shrugged. “Didn’t Dumbledore say that this whole village is called ‘The Village Hidden in Leaves’? It looks like a leaf with a swirl on it. Dunno why, though it does look the same as _that_ swirl,” he added, pointing at a spot on the map off to the right of the Land of Fire, on a small island.

Hermione leaned in, examining the spot minutely. “You know, Ron, I think you’re right. That village is represented by a hollow dot though, so I wonder if it doesn’t exist anymore?”

“That would make sense,” agreed Harry. He looked down at the map again. There were only four dots that were comparable in size to the one marked by the stylized leaf: one roughly in each corner of the map. He examined the symbols next to each of them. Two rocks, a cloud, four wavy lines, and an outline like a lowercase i. In fact, upon closer inspection, while those four were all the same size, Konohagakure’s dot was actually a little larger. He guessed that either this village was the largest of them all, or perhaps the map had been printed in Konohagakure and there was some bias toward it. He pointed this out, and Hermione agreed with his first guess. Ron had wandered off toward the window and was gazing out at the village itself.

“I wish we could read these books,” Hermione said again, her lips falling into an almost-pout once more. “This place must have such a fascinating history!”

“Yeah,” said Ron from over by the window. “We could ask about the story behind _that_.”

The other two joined him by the window and saw that the skyline behind the city was dominated by a mountain, into which there were carved four enormous faces. It was, Hermione said, just like the American Mount Rushmore that she had read about, though of course the faces carved into that mountain had been American Muggle leaders.

“Actually,” she said after a small pause, “doesn’t the third face from the left look a bit like the Hokage?”

“Yeah, it does,” agreed Ron. “A little younger, but definitely the same bloke.”

“And didn’t he say,” said Harry, “that he was the _third_ Hokage?”

“Yes,” said Hermione at once, her excellent memory recalling the previous night with ease. “I wonder why there’s a fourth face, though, if the village is only on its third Hokage…”

“Because the Fourth Hokage gave his life defending Konoha, almost twelve years ago now, and forced the Third back out of retirement,” said a new voice behind them. 

All three of them spun around, reaching for their wands. There was a man none of them had seen before standing beside the bookshelf. He was wearing an outfit similar to the guards downstairs, with a green vest over a navy-blue shirt and pants. He had shoulder-length brown hair covered by a navy bandanna, and a long silver needle held in his mouth like a toothpick.

He looked supremely unconcerned at seeing three wands in his face. Hermione lowered hers first, looking embarrassed. Harry and Ron followed suit, though Harry couldn’t help noticing, glancing to the man’s left, that the only door was still locked from the inside. On the other hand, the Hokage had assured them that they would be safe here, and Dumbledore had told them to avoid using magic, if possible. 

“How did you get in here?” Ron asked bluntly. The stranger smirked, but didn’t reply.

Hermione elbowed Ron, and said politely, “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” She held out her hand.

The stranger merely stared at her hand, though if he had to guess, Harry would have said he wasn’t being rude. Rather, he seemed more like he didn’t know what she was doing or why. After a pause, he bowed at the waist and spoke in what sounded like a very formal way.

“It is good to meet you; I am called Shiranui. Nice to meet you.”

Once again, Harry had the impression that the words he was hearing did not match up with the meaning his mind presented. Harry was certain that the stranger had said no more than five different words. Deciding to ponder the translation spell at another time, he bowed the same way in return, and said, “My name is Harry Potter. The pleasure is mine.” Ron and Hermione hastily imitated him.

The stranger’s eyebrows rose.

“There’s no need to tell your given name to someone you’ve only just met,” he said mildly, the toothpick in his mouth dancing. “Even in Konoha that isn’t often done.”

“Sorry,” said Hermione. “But you see, we’re new to Konoha, so…”

The man chuckled. “That’s plain to see,” he said good-naturedly.

“…so we appreciate being told any information like that, Shiranui-san,” she finished. Then she looked confused for a moment at her own words, and glanced at Harry.

“Translation spell?” Harry offered, shrugging. “I guess it changes the way we talk to people a little even in English.” He was guessing she had tried to say ‘Mr. Shiranui’, but it had come out differently. Strange.

“In any case, the Third Hokage asked me to bring you three back down to the Academy,” said the man who had introduced himself as Shiranui--which Harry now realized must be his family name. “My guess is, you’re to be introduced to the Jonin-sensei, and maybe the new genin teams.”

None of the foreign words really ‘translated’, but Harry got some vague impressions from each word--‘Elite, High, Top,’; ‘Teacher, Master,’; and ‘Junior, Low,’ respectively. In other words, they were to be introduced to the elite teachers, and the new junior teams. Now it was his turn to glance at Hermione, who nodded.

At this point, Ron broke in, “What does ‘Jonin’ actually mean? Or ‘Genin’?”

“Those are the highest and lowest ranks of ninja, respectively,” said Shiranui. Looking and listening carefully, Harry saw the other’s lips form the word ‘Shinobi’ at the same time that Harry understood the word ‘Ninja’.

Shiranui turned and walked to the door with his hands casually in his pockets. The back of his bandanna bore the same metal plate engraved with the symbol for Konoha that the other guards had worn as a headband. “Come on,” he said, stopping at the door. They could see the needle in his mouth dancing as he spoke, even with his back turned. “The Hokage is waiting.”

* * *

The Hokage sat in his office, facing this year’s three chosen jonin-sensei. Sarutobi Asuma, the Hokage’s own son, fiddled absently with an unlit cigarette; he wanted to smoke, but was too polite to do so in the Hokage’s office, especially given who he was standing next to. He was a big man, with broad shoulders and a scrubby, pointed beard. He also had a keen mind and was a middling strategist, though nothing compared to some of the Nara clan’s prodigies in that area.

Beside him was Yuuhi Kurenai, a brilliant kunoichi with a talent for genjutsu, the techniques of deceiving the minds and senses of enemies. She was taking on a genin team as a personal favor to the Hokage, and despite her own misgivings regarding her capability. The Hokage, of course, knew better--she would make a fine sensei, especially for a reconnaissance team. She and Asuma had long enjoyed a friendly flirtation, and the Hokage knew she frequently encouraged him to quit smoking. 

Finally, there was Hatake Kakashi, his face almost fully concealed by both his clan’s traditional face mask and his hitai-ite, which he wore at an angle to conceal his sharingan when it was not in use. As he was not born with the sharingan, he could not suppress it entirely, as an Uchiha could. So much as having the eye open drained his chakra considerably, which he tried to avoid whenever possible. At the moment, his one uncovered eye was fixed upon the book he was reading; the orange cover and characteristic ‘No’ symbol proclaimed it to be the most recent installment of Icha-Icha Paradise. It was almost a surprise that he actually arrived on time for the meeting, even though it shouldn’t be possible for him to be late, since he had been at the previous meeting, and come straight here. Still, it had happened before.

The Hokage sighed and adjusted his posture, trying to ease his aching bones. His rheumatism would often act up if he stayed in one position for too long. They were all waiting for the return of three of the Academy’s senior instructors, before they could begin the team division. 

To the Hokage’s mild disappointment, Ebisu, Umino Iruka, and Mizuki Toji had reported to him that there were only eight graduates. When he asked hopefully about Naruto, Mizuki had shaken his head, “He did not pass, Hokage-sama. Still no talent for Bunshin no Jutsu. Not able to produce even one simple clone.”

Another sigh, but before the Hokage could call the three Jonin to order anyway, the door opened, revealing Ebisu half-carrying Umino Iruka. 

“I found Iruka-san in the woods behind the monument, Hokage-sama,” Ebisu announced without preamble.

Iruka looked distinctly worse for wear--he was covered with cuts and scrapes, including a large gouge in the middle of his back, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. There was also fresh blood welling in the old scar across his nose, and his hitai-ite was missing.

"What happened, Iruka?" asked the Hokage, as Kurenai and Asuma leapt to help the battered Chunin into a chair. Kakashi did not rise, though he did slip his book back into the pocket of his flak vest as he looked intently at Iruka.

“I recovered the stolen sealing scroll and sent it back to its rightful place, Hokage-sama,” Iruka stated, in the tone of a chunin’s mission debriefing. “I am also please to report that we have a ninth genin graduate!”

“And has the culprit been apprehended?”

“Was it the Uzumaki kid, like the rumors say?” Asuma interrupted.

Iruka scowled at him, but continued to address his senior. “It was Mizuki that betrayed us, Hokage-sama. When Naruto couldn't produce a good bunshin, he failed the jutsu portion of the exam. Mizuki told him that stealing the scroll and bringing it to him would count as extra credit and allow him to still pass the exam.”

“He fell for that?” Kakashi asked in surprise. “And we're considering making him a ninja why?”

“If students cannot trust their sensei, who can they trust?” Iruka asked stiffly. “We cannot punish him for listening to a teacher, can we?” He turned toward the Hokage with the last question. 

The Hokage nodded gravely. “I agree. If _we_ cannot guarantee the loyalty of the people who teach our children, we certainly cannot blame the children for doing no better.” His sharp eyes took in Iruka’s bare forehead, with its conspicuously missing hitai-ite. “What happened to your forehead protector?”

Umino Iruka smiled proudly. “I gave it to Naruto. He'd failed to produce a simple bunshin in the exam, but when he was defending me from Mizuki's attacks he revealed that he'd learned Kage Bunshin no Jutsu from the sealing scroll. He filled that whole section of the forest with clones. I literally lost count.”

“But Kage Bunshin is much harder to perform!” Asuma protested.

Iruka shrugged happily. “That's why I passed him. He's quite surprising.”

The Hokage smiled. “Well then, Naruto makes nine academy graduates; enough for a full team for each of you. Now, let us see about the team divisions while we await Genma-san’s arrival with our honoured guests.”

Honoured guests? Everyone else in the room glanced at each other, having no idea who or what the Hokage was talking about. 

“How many genin squads are there at present?” the Hokage asked the room at large.

“Six, including Maito Gai’s squad, Hokage-sama,” replied Ebisu.

“There seems little point in trying to change what works well, so I propose we arrange the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi graduates into a squad,” the Hokage went on. Everyone nodded, and Asuma stepped forward.

“I’ll take that squad,” he said, gruffly. “I’ve taken a personal interest in that Nara kid. If I’m right, he’s even more brilliant than his father.” As Nara Shikaku was Konoha’s current Jonin Commander, and the most gifted strategist anyone had ever seen, that would be saying something. The Hokage nodded his assent, and designated them Team 10.

“Kurenai-san,” the old man continued, “I asked you if you were willing to captain a squad specializing in reconnaissance and tracking. To that end, I recommend the Hyuuga, Aburame, and Inuzuka graduates, as Team 8.”

Kurenai bowed her head in acceptance. “As you say, Hokage-sama.”

“Finally,” the Hokage turned to Kakashi, “and especially given that it is traditional that the highest- and lowest-ranked students be placed together for balance, you will be taking charge of Haruno, Uchiha, and Uzumaki, to produce Team 7.” Kakashi’s one visible eye gave no hint of his thoughts. He nodded curtly.

At last, the Hokage heard four sets of footsteps in the hallways outside, drawing slowly nearer. He smiled, pleased with the expected effect of his next words. “As I mentioned to all of you, I was hopeful that we would be able to create a fourth squad today.” He gestured toward the door, and everyone turned as it swung open, almost as though the Hokage had made it happen himself. Standing framed in the doorway was Shiranui Genma, followed by the three young foreigners.

“Our three honoured guests,” the Hokage rumbled, “have come from very far away, and their…guardian…expressed a wish for them to be trained as shinobi of Konoha. They will have some catching-up to do, but I believe that we may all be impressed with how quickly they progress. Therefore, I am pleased to present to you all…”

All four people in the doorway were frozen, eyes wide. The three young ones looked baffled, and the Jonin looked absolutely stunned. None of them interrupted, though, as the Hokage finished his pronouncement.

“…Team 9! And its Jonin-sensei, Shiranui Genma!”

The sound of the senbon tumbling from Genma’s mouth echoed all around the chamber.


	3. An Eventful Day's Shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genma takes his squad shopping, and they run into a certain orange-clad, blond-haired, hyperactive, noisy knucklehead.

The next few hours were a blur. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were introduced to everyone in the Hokage’s office. Then, the other three Jonin filed out, and the Hokage briefed them on what was expected of them. Hermione asked most of the questions, as she usually did when lectured on a new subject. Ron’s jaw was hanging open for most of it, and Harry couldn’t blame him.

When the Hokage had finished with them, he was confronted by Genma, whose face was flushed. Harry wondered briefly if he resented being made their sensei, but didn’t get that impression from the set of the older man’s shoulders. It was more as if he was grumbling at the Hokage for springing the assignment on him. Harry heard him asking something about guard duty before he was nudged into a chair. Ron and Hermione sat down on either side of him.

The two instructors Ebisu and Iruka began a stripped-down lecture on the basics of ninja training. They explained what chakra was and how it functioned, which even Harry recognized as being similar to how magic worked. The energy--whether one called it magic or chakra--was gathered first inside the body. For a spell, it would then be focused by the resonant magical core of a wand; ninjutsu called for the energy to be focused instead by combinations of hand seals. 

There were over a dozen such seals, and they proved to be the trickiest part to learn, but the instructors were infinitely patient, guiding them all through the tricky gestures, correcting the slightest problems, quizzing them on different seals periodically during different parts of the lecture until all three of them had them committed to memory, and extracting a promise from each of them to practice the seals on a daily basis.

The different techniques a ninja trained--taijutsu, genjutsu, ninjutsu, bukijutsu, and so on--were discussed at length, and the foreigners’ understanding of their relationship with the other citizens and shinobi of the village was clarified. They were still ‘honoured guests’, but they were also genin-in-training. As such, they were to obey their sensei, and other higher-ranking shinobi as necessary, and answer ultimately to the Hokage.

Nobody knew just how long the three of them would be staying in Konoha, so the Hokage had decided to act as if they would be there indefinitely. Today, he said, they would go with their new sensei to obtain clothes and ninja gear appropriate for beginners, find an apartment building with some vacancies, and meet the rest of the new genin tomorrow at the academy. The others, they were told quietly by Iruka, did not yet know who their teammates or their jonin-sensei would be. Iruka himself promised to introduce them to the new genin, but assured them that they would not be pestered much over who they were and where they had come from, since all the students were far too excited about having graduated.

After a time, the instructors pronounced themselves satisfied, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione had to wait while Genma continued to argue with the Hokage. Finally, the Hokage waved Genma away, with an expression not entirely unlike a smirk on his wrinkled face. Genma stalked over to the door and picked up the senbon he had dropped earlier. He slipped it into a pouch strapped to his arm, and pulled out another one, which he promptly clamped between his teeth.

“Come on, you three…students,” he called back as he walked out the door. Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other, then quickly followed.

* * *

And so it was that they found themselves following Shiranui Genma down the main street of Konoha, which twisted oddly. Genma explained as they walked that the city’s layout was specifically designed to confuse invaders. Even civilians sometimes got lost, though shinobi would be able to just hop up to the rooftops if they needed to get their bearings.

“Genma-sensei,” said Hermione, who had taken to the new forms of address immediately. “Do you think we’re going to have any trouble buying what we need?”

“I doubt it,” Genma drawled. “You’re literally shopping on the Hokage’s orders, and the first thing we’re getting your uniform. That’ll include a hitai-ite, so everyone will know you’re shinobi and treat you as such, even if they don’t recognize you.”

They were approaching the shop that Genma had said was a tailor, when suddenly the door was flung open and someone was hurled out the door, landing hard in the dirt.

“And stay out, ya dirty thief!” came an angry voice from the shop.

“Hey, I never stole anything!” roared the boy who had been thrown out. “You take that back! I’m no thief, dattebayo!”

Genma paused, and Harry and Ron stopped behind him. The kid laid out in the dust had bright blond hair, a round face with strange, whisker-like marks on his cheeks, and was wearing an eye-wateringly orange jumpsuit. Shockingly, he also wore a Konoha forehead protector, proclaiming him a ninja. Ron snorted.

“Not very stealthy, is he?” he said to Harry.

Hermione, though, had not stopped. She hurried forward and helped the boy to his feet.

“What happened, Naruto?” Genma asked, the needle in his mouth dancing again.

“Oh, Genma-dono.” The translation spell rendered a title of high respect to someone whose exact rank Naruto was unsure of.

The young boy scuffed his foot in the dust. “I just went in there to buy a new uniform. They got mad and threw me out when they saw me.” He looked up, earnest and angry. “I never stole anything!” he insisted. “They just hate me because of…”

He trailed off, and Genma cocked his head, studying the orange-clad boy carefully. “This isn’t the first time that’s happened, is it, Naruto?” he asked shrewdly.

Blushing, the boy shook his head.

“Come with us then,” Genma said. “My three students need uniforms as well, and maybe we can find you an outfit that’s a little easier on the eyes.” Ron chuckled at this, and Harry forced himself to hide a smile.

“Nani?” ‘Asking for clarification,’ the charm interpreted. Harry decided at this point that the translation spell was worth every bit of confusion.

Genma looked confused. “Naruto, are you colour-blind?”

“No.”

“Then, you do realize that bright orange is a terrible colour for stealth, yes? You blend in with exactly nothing.” Ron was laughing harder still.

Naruto flushed again, and mumbled something under his breath that only Genma seemed to catch.

“Yeah, I know; that’s why you’re coming with the rest of us. Come on.”

He started to turn away, then paused. He walked up to the wall of the shop, pulled the long needle from his mouth, and scratched several symbols into the wood beside the door. Though he still couldn’t read them, Harry still got a faint impression of meaning from the symbols. The predominant one was a symbol that looked a little like two stars over a flat table of some sort, from which he got the impression ‘Forbidden, restricted, prohibited’--a warning not to shop there. It wasn’t very visible but, as Genma said when he stepped away, “No Shinobi will miss it.”

They all followed Genma down the street, Naruto alternating between looking in awe at Genma and curiously at the three foreigners.

“Hello,” Hermione said to him, to break the tension. “My name is Herm…er, I mean, Granger Hermione. This is Potter Harry, and Weasley Ron. It is good to meet you.” She bowed gently as they walked, and Harry and Ron did the same. Naruto’s jaw dropped, and he nearly tripped.

“U-Uzumaki Naruto,” he said. Belatedly, Naruto remembered to bow to them, though it made him stumble again. If Harry didn’t know better, he’d have said that Naruto have many people talk to him on a daily basis. It reminded Harry of how he had felt, growing up with the Dursleys. 

Deciding that simply engaging the blond boy in conversation would probably draw him out of his shell somewhat, Harry asked him, “So you passed your graduation?”

The boy’s face split in a wide smile. “Yeah, I did! I mean, it took me a couple tries and I still didn’t do it quite the way we were supposed to, but I did it, look!” He indicated his hitai-ite proudly. “Iruka-sensei gave me this and said that he was proud of me.” A little colour came back into his cheeks at those words.

Hermione, who was listening closely, shot Harry a look at the sight. That was a surprisingly emotional response to some relatively simple praise.

“Well, it sounds like you worked very hard, Naruto-san,” said Hermione. 

Naruto flushed again, but before he could formulate a reply, Genma called back, “Here, this tailor ought to do.”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione couldn’t read the sign, but they saw an extra banner across the entrance and guessed there was a celebration of some sort.

“What’s the occasion?” said Ron as they entered behind Naruto.

“Why, it’s my grand opening, young man,” replied the owner, bustling out from behind the counter to greet them. “I am Ikitarou of the land of Waves, and I am greatly pleased to welcome you to my humble shop.”

Ron looked off-put by such self-deprecation on the shopkeeper’s part, but none of what he had said carried a negative tone according to the translation spell. Rather, he was displaying simple humility--he really did consider his shop humble, despite the spacious interior.

Before Ron could say anything else, Genma spoke up. “I have four newly-minted genin here who will need uniforms for active duty as well as some civilian wear. Only the finest materials; let’s say…three uniforms each, to start. Consult with each of them for civilian wear. Price is no object for these three,” he indicated Harry, Ron, and Hermione, “simply give me the bill and it will be attended to.”

Ikitarou bowed and said, “At once, shinobi-sama; at once.” He pulled a measuring cloth and a notepad from his sleeve, and began measuring Ron at once. Hermione glanced at Naruto before turning to Genma, but before she could ask why he was excluding the boy, Genma was speaking again.

“Naruto-kun, you have your money with you?”

“Of course, Genma-sensei,” Naruto replied, holding up a bulging frog-shaped wallet. Genma’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t reply.

He turned back to the tailor, who’d had to fetch a stool to measure Ron’s height. “The same treatment for this one as well, tailor-san, but charge the bill to me. He and I can split the cost later. And no orange!” he finished, loudly over Naruto’s sputtering.

All of them were measured swiftly and then made to stand on their own short stools, while Ikitarou began altering materials to fit them, starting with Harry. First came underclothes, the tailor said, speaking for all of their benefit and pointedly not looking at Hermione, which were of course subject to their own preferences and not part of the uniform. 

Then came trousers and shirts, the latter of which usually had a high collar, he said, with a respectful nod toward Genma. Harry requested a lower cut to the necks of his own shirts, and sleeves that would leave his arms free from the elbows down, and Ikitarou obliged. Many shinobi also wore mesh armour to cover their vitals, the tailor continued, which was like a sleeveless shirt made of light, flexible metal mesh. Then came the jacket--not a flak jacket like Genma’s, which they would be able to wear upon reaching chunin rank--but made from a tough material nonetheless. The arms of the jacket had to be altered to match Harry’s preferences as well, ending above his elbow. Each of these, once tailored to Harry, were then duplicated: once in the standard green of Konoha, once in a neutral tan colour, and once in dark, mottled greys. 

He was also equipped with several thick leather belts, two sets of metal-backed fingerless gloves which looked black but were actually a dark blue, and several pairs of shoes, including slippers, odd navy-coloured sandals which left the toes bare, and sturdy climbing boots. It was the sandals he would wear most often, Genma-sensei cut in, indicating his own feet. Harry nodded acquiescence, and slipped the odd shoes on.

Finally, Harry was presented with three hitai-ite in the colours which complemented his uniforms--navy, brown, and black. Bearing in mind how much the simple cloth had meant to Naruto, Harry took the navy one and carefully tied it around his head, which of course had the added benefit of concealing his lightning-shaped scar. He didn’t want anyone asking questions about that, when he had finally come to a place where nobody knew what it meant.

He gazed at himself in the mirror, and saw…not Harry Potter at all, but a new genin of Konoha, clad in complementary shades of navy blue and forest green, which accented his bright eyes.

Ron’s outfitting was similar, though he opted for his main uniform to be a navy blue so dark it was nearly black. He wore his neckline higher and his sleeves longer than Harry’s, with mesh armour that came all the way to his wrists. Ron got some mesh to go under his trousers as well, protecting him from waist to knee. At Genma’s suggestion, Ikitarou also included a scrap of dark cloth which Ron could use as a bandanna, to cover his bright hair. Something which, Genma continued, he would also insist upon for Naruto. Ron elected to wear his hitai-ite around his neck. Genma allowed this, though he insisted that Ron tie it carefully so as not to obstruct his head’s range of motion.

Hermione’s uniforms were the same colours as Ron’s, but--after consulting at length with Genma in a voice too low for the others to hear--she forewent sleeves entirely, leaving her arms bare. This meant mesh armour in the same style as Harry’s, with a sleeveless navy shirt under and an equally armless vest-like jacket over it. The jacket she chose was green like Harry’s, but cut very differently to the boys’, with a triangular neckline lower than Harry’s round one, and a seam that angled down across her chest and stomach from under her right shoulder to her left hip. She also wore shorts instead of trousers, which ended just above her knees, and padded shin braces that rose from her sandals. Her outfit was completed by full-finger gloves and her hitai-ite worn around her waist, as a belt.

Naruto’s fitting was much faster, though Genma had to step in several times. Naruto at first requested essentially the same full-body, jumpsuit-like uniform he was already wearing, but in the appropriate colours dictated by Genma. Genma allowed this, but required that for each such jumpsuit Naruto bought, he also buy an identical one with separate jacket and trousers. Genma also made good on his word and insisted that Naruto purchase some bandannas, as his blond hair was easy to see at a distance--though unlike Ron, Naruto did not immediately don his. Naruto also insisted that one of his jumpsuits have the usual spiral logo in the same orange as his original jumpsuit. Genma refused, saying that the symbol of Uzushiogakure was dark red so that it wouldn’t upset stealth, and that making it orange would defeat the purpose. Naruto glowered at him, and Genma finally relented enough to say that the design Naruto requested would be appropriate for his civilian clothes.

“In fact,” said Genma slowly, “I think it would be entirely _appropriate_ for you to wear that symbol, no matter what the color.” This seemed to placate the boy, though Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Genma’s tone seemed significant. What could that have meant?

It took a little over an hour, all told, but they all left the shop wearing the most basic of their new uniforms, and feeling rather good about it. They had also purchased cloaks--which the Hogwarts trio was of course familiar with--as well as some basic shirts and pants to wear when they were off-duty, and some other, oddly-cut robes which Ikitarou called a ‘kimono’. From a few questions, they gathered that these were sort of like dress robes, and to be worn on extremely formal occasions for the boys. Hermione also purchased with several extra kimonos, which she was told were a little more casual and appropriate for day-to-day wear. 

The bills were carefully counted up, under Genma’s watchful eye. When the tailor presented the total to him, Genma nodded. He folded the papers carefully and put them inside his jacket, then--making sure his students were imitating him--bowed deeply to Ikitarou. “Our many humble thanks for your excellent work,” he said simply, and the children echoed him.

* * *

Their next stop was an equipment and weapons shop. The proprietor was an older gentleman, who had apparently only ever reached genin rank himself before deciding that the lifestyle wasn’t for him. He was assisted in his shop by a pretty young girl who wore a Konoha hitai-ite under hair done up in two buns on the sides of her head. She blinked at seeing Naruto come in with them, but then put on an appropriately warm smile. She introduced herself as Tenten, and swept them away for their shopping trip before her father could so much as open his mouth. 

Ron looked amazed at all the weapons on display, and started asking questions immediately. Harry watched with some amusement, as Ron alternated between interested in the weapons, and flustered at Tenten’s smiles. She was, after all, very pretty. She reminded Harry a little of his own crush on Cho Chang. Thinking of Cho, though, led Harry to thoughts of Cedric, and he mentally shook himself. Now was not the time to let his thoughts wander down that dark path.

After fifteen minutes of hearing Tenten chatter about different weapons in response to Ron’s questions, Genma finally cut in. “What they _need_ , Tenten-chan, is three sets each of your best kunai and shuriken, plus assorted smoke bombs and flash bombs, and a few exploding tags. That includes Naruto. In addition, these three,” he indicated his own students, “will also each need a full set of training weapons, as well as equipment pouches, backpacks, canteens, and other basic survival gear.”

Noting Ron’s glare, he added, with the merest trace of condescension in his voice, “There’s no sense training to a specialized weapon when you don’t even know if it’ll suit you when you’re fully grown. It’s best to stick to generalized weapons until you’re closer to your full build, unless you want to train in _everything_.”

Harry saw the sense in this, and Hermione nodded, but Ron still looked stubborn. “What if we _do_ want to train in everything?” he asked.

Genma paused, taken aback. He looked intently at Ron for a moment, chewing on the end of his toothpick, which he had told them was called a senbon. “If you’re serious about that, then I’ll take you at your word. We’ll start with kenjutsu.” 

He looked up at Tenten and added, “We’ll also take a kodachi-style tanto for this one…and if he shows any real talent for bukijutsu, I’ll be sending him your way.” Tenten flashed Ron another grin, and scampered around the shop to collect everything Genma had requested. Genma put that receipt in his pocket as well, and both Tenten and her father bowed them from the shop.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were now weighed down with heavy backpacks full of all the equipment they had bought, plus their extra uniforms and street clothes from Ikitarou’s. Genma had also showed them how to attach a weapons holster to their dominant leg, and the equipment pouches to their belts. He also helped Ron strap his new sword, which was about two feet long, crosswise to his back, where he could easily reach it with his right hand. It was, he cautioned Ron, a real weapon, not a toy, and he extracted from the red-haired boy a promise not to play around with it until he knew how to use it. Ron nodded, looking unusually solemn.

Naruto, who was still tagging along with them, looked extremely jealous. When Hermione asked why, he burst out, “Because you guys already know your sensei, and I don’t find out who mine is until tomorrow!”

Hermione shrugged. “We were introduced to the other Jonin-sensei, but I have no idea who was assigned to each of them.”

“Ano, you met them?” said Naruto. “Who are they? Tell me, please?”

Genma glanced back sharply, but Harry saw no harm in it. “A big bloke named Sarutobi Asuma, a woman named Yuuhi Kurenai, and a scarecrow of a man named Hatake Kakashi,” he told Naruto. Naruto’s face fell a little at his words. “What’s wrong now?”

“I…I don’t know any of them,” he said awkwardly.

Genma let out a laugh. “You’ve never heard of the Hokage’s son, the most brilliant genjutsu mistress of the last hundred years, or the infamous copy ninja? What rock have you been living under?”

Naruto blushed furiously, scowling, and Genma abruptly stopped laughing. “Of course…” he muttered to himself. Then he said, more loudly, “I’m sorry, Naruto. I’ll try to answer any questions you have.” Naruto looked like Christmas had come early.

“However,” Genma added quickly, raising a warning finger, “I’m not allowed to tell you what team you’re on. Don’t ask me to break the Hokage’s confidences.”

Naruto nodded vigorously, but as he opened his mouth again, his stomach gave a loud growl.

“As Naruto has so kindly indicated, it is time for dinner,” said Genma. This caused Naruto to blush again, though he was smiling this time. “What are you all hungry for?”

“Ramen!” shouted Naruto. “We’re right by Ichiraku’s; old man Teuchi makes the best ramen around!” 

Genma pulled a face. “Can’t we go to a real restaurant?”

But Naruto was insistent, and soon they were all ducking under the cloth drapes into the ramen bar.

“Ohayo, Oyaji-san!” Naruto called as he sat down. The proprietor of the ramen bar was a kindly-faced older man who introduced himself as Teuchi. 

He smiled as he turned to Naruto, “I assume you’ll want to start with the miso ramen as usual, but why don’t you introduce me to your friends? And is this your sensei?”

“Neh, Teuchi-san, he’s their sensei. This is Harry, Ron, and Hermione; they came from far away to become Shinobi of the Leaf and I told them there’s no better place for ramen than Ichiraku’s!”

Teuchi roared with laughter as he handed menus to Genma and the three Hogwarts students. “Well, I’m certainly not going to argue with my best customer. What can I get you all?”

Harry and Hermione decided to trust Naruto’s judgment and ordered miso ramen, while Ron asked for a bowl of beef ramen. Genma ordered Tonkotsu-style Pork ramen, “but please hold the spinach,” he added, looking a little ill.

“Not a problem, not a problem,” the old man assured him. “Would you be interested in trying today’s special? We offer a special dish one day every week,” he added by way of explanation. “This week, it’s a pumpkin broth that my daughter Ayane made.”

Genma nodded, and the young woman in question offered him a sample. On tasting it, his eyes grew wide, and he ordered the largest bowl Teuchi would bring him. Pumpkin broth was, he explained, his absolute favorite…and hers was the best he had tasted in a long time. Ayane flushed with pleasure and went to fetch his order, bringing it to him just as Teuchi delivered everyone’s ramen.

Harry had been too absorbed to notice during their earlier meal that Ron didn’t really seem to know what to do with his chopsticks. Knowing that Ron would be embarrassed if Harry pointed it out, he picked up his own chopsticks carefully, demonstrating how to use them as though needing to remind himself. Hermione, picking up what he was doing, did likewise. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Genma smile. Naruto and Genma both said “Itadakimasu”--Naruto much more loudly, of course. Harry, Ron, and Hermione carefully repeated the phrase, which the translation charm rendered with an impression of ‘Thanks given before a meal’, and they all tucked in.

Harry had to admit that Naruto might have a point about this place, because the food was excellent--the noodles were firm and tender, the broth light but hearty, and he soon ordered a second bowl, this time of pork ramen. Hermione tried a second bowl of chicken ramen, though it was smaller than her first. Genma had soon finished his ramen and was savoring the pumpkin broth. Ron and Naruto were both finishing their third bowls by this point, and seemed to be competing. In the end, they broke even after their fifth round. 

As they ate, Naruto asked Genma again about the other Jonin-sensei. Genma discussed them briefly, but said that if they really wanted to know more about them, the best bet was to ask for some supplemental training. It wasn’t commonly done, of course, since most teams were taught exclusively by their own sensei, but Genma saw no sense in pretending that there weren’t some things that others could do better than himself. Maito Gai, for instance, was a hand-to-hand prodigy; perhaps the most accomplished taijutsu master in the Land of Fire. Yuuhi Kurenai was an expert on genjutsu and human psychology. Sarutobi Asuma was a fair tactician and an excellent defensive fighter, frequently bringing his teams back intact from missions that looked fatal. Hatake Kakashi was renowned throughout many countries for his ninjutsu.

“What is your specialty, then, Genma-sensei?” asked Hermione.

“Kenjutsu,” he answered, tapping one of the swords on his back. “As well as some special ninjutsu that I don’t think I’ll be sharing just at the moment.” He smiled, to take the condescension out of the answer. “You’ll actually get a chance to work with each of those others on occasion in the weeks to come, seeing as you’re actually in the opposite situation of most genin.”

“What do you mean, opposite?” asked Harry.

Genma smiled again. “Well,” he drawled, “most genin graduate the academy with a strong basis in basic ninja arts and skills--target practice, tracking, tactics, chakra moulding, and so on. They also already know all their classmates to some degree. What they need practice at is working in concert, hence why they’re placed into 3-person teams under the eyes of a jonin. 

“You three, however, already have solid teamwork. I can tell just from how you act around each other that you can just about read each others’ minds, even in tough situations. It’s the basic skills you three need to learn, so I’m not going to hesitate to split you up if I think you’ll learn better that way. So if, for instance, I feel like one of you would benefit from working with me one-on-one on a given day, I’ll have the other two each join another jonin-sensei and work with their squad. This will also have the benefit of allowing you to get to know the other genin in the village, which the Hokage feels will be beneficial to your growth as shinobi and as people.” His last words had taken on a singsong tone, as he no doubt recited something he had heard the Hokage say many times.

“Nevertheless, I will be more than sufficient to train the three of you for a week or two at least, seeing as you’re starting essentially from square one. Speaking of which, show me a tiger seal, now!” All of them demonstrated the hand seal correctly, even Naruto, who seemed to have been caught off-guard by the sudden order. Genma quizzed them on hand seals for another few minutes, before smiling broadly and pronouncing himself satisfied for tonight.

Finally, they had all eaten their fill, and Teuchi was happy to hand the receipts, once again, to Genma. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Naruto picked up their shopping, and both Teuchi and his daughter insisted that they all visit again soon. By this time the sun was low in the sky, and Genma put a hand up to shade his eyes as he turned to face them.

“The last thing we have to do today is find somewhere that you three can live, here in the village. As honoured guests of Konoha, it was appropriate for you to stay at the Hokage’s residence, but as genin you will need to provide for yourselves.

“Ano…” said Naruto slowly. “I think there are apartments free in my building, Genma-sama.” He spoke very respectfully, addressing Genma with more deference than he had done earlier.

Genma studied Naruto carefully, his toothpick dancing. “Do you know if there are three different apartments available, Naruto? They probably don’t want to share, if they don’t have to.”

“Hai, there’s at least four apartments empty in my building.” said Naruto.

Genma turned to look at Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who all nodded. “All right,” Genma said after a pause. “Lead the way there, Naruto, and we’ll see if we can’t convince your landlord.”

“Landlady,” Naruto clarified, as he turned down a side street that ran beside a small creek. “It’s this building here.”

Harry blinked, surprised that they were so close. Genma nodded approvingly. “Right in the middle of everything in Konoha. Excellent.” He strolled up to the office and knocked.

The door opened a crack, and a raspy old woman’s voice said, “I heard your voice; what do you want, demon child?”

Even from where they were standing, the children could see Genma’s displeasure from the way the senbon in his mouth suddenly froze. When he spoke though, his voice was as casual a drawl as ever.

“Been a few years since I’ve been called that.”

The door suddenly opened much wider, and the landlady bowed very deeply. “My apologies, shinobi-sama. I mistook you for--”

“For a different Konoha shinobi, yes,” Genma finished for her. His voice was still calm, but she flinched slightly. “However, I am here to see about lodging for my three students. I was given to understand that you have some apartments to let?”

“Hai, shinobi-sama. Three students? I have three adjacent rooms on the third floor. Would you like to see them?”

“I don’t think there will be any need; we can handle our own tour. Adjacent rooms would be good…” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We’ll consider the proposition carefully, landlady-san.” He nodded sharply and then paced away toward the main entrance. “Come and show us your apartment, Naruto-san, so we know what to expect.”

Naruto stumbled in his haste to catch up. He led them up to a door on the second floor, and had unlocked it before he hesitated, looking sheepish.

“Go in and take a moment to clean up, Naruto,” said Genma, without waiting for the green-clad boy to explain what was wrong. Naruto bowed and slipped inside, shutting the door behind himself. They heard him say something, and then a loud pop. Finally, there was a huge commotion behind the door, as though a dozen people were running around inside. Genma shook his head.

“Kage Bunshin for cleaning,” he said quietly, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “And from Naruto of all people. Never thought I’d see the day.”

Harry remembered the word bunshin from the clone technique that the Hokage had used. Kage, the translation charm rendered as ‘shadow’.

“I thought clones were just an illusion, Genma-sensei?” Ron asked. “Like when the Hokage showed us.”

“Regular Bunshin are illusory,” said Genma. “Kage Bunshin are actually corporeal. It’s a much more difficult technique, and more dangerous. Far more useful, too, though most people don’t use it for cleaning.” He broke off again, chuckling.

At that moment, they heard a series of pops, and Naruto opened the door again, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. They walked in and looked around.

The apartment wasn’t large, but it was reasonably comfortable--a basic two-room studio with a bed in one corner and a kitchenette in the other, with a sliding door leading to the bathroom. It had plainly been rather hastily cleaned, but it didn’t look too bad…as long as they chose to ignore the dirty clothes peeking out from under the bed, or the way the dustbin lid didn’t fit properly due to how overstuffed the bin was.

“If all the apartments are like this, I think you guys will be fine,” said Genma.

“And it’ll be three apartments next to each other?” asked Ron. Genma nodded.

Naruto, his face screwed up in thought, said “I’m pretty sure one of those apartments is right there.” He pointed at the ceiling. “She did say it was the third floor, right?” This time it was Hermione who nodded.

Meanwhile, Harry’s mind was working furiously. He wasn’t stupid, even if he couldn’t measure up to Hermione. He had been wondering since they had left the ramen stand why Naruto lived in an apartment, instead of in a house with his family. And if he had no family, why not in an orphanage or something? From the apartment’s look, it was plain enough that nobody else lived there. Who would let a young boy live on his own like this?

Harry thought he was pretty good at reading people, most of the time. Growing up with the Dursleys, he had learned at a young age how to read others’ moods. His uncle was best avoided when angry, his aunt when her gossip-mongering turned up no new rumors. His cousin Dudley was best avoided period. Harry remembered the look on Naruto’s face when they had introduced themselves, and his awkwardness greeting them in return. He thought about Naruto’s blush when he realized Genma was sticking up for him. Harry had reasoned it out every way he could, but the only answer he could come up with was that Naruto was basically alone--as alone as Harry had been at the Dursleys, before he had come to Hogwarts and met Ron and Hermione.

Bearing all this in mind, he said carefully, “Well, it looks all right to me. What do you think, Naruto? Would you mind having us as neighbors, as well as friends?”

Naruto leapt into the air and punched a fist toward the ceiling, yelling, “Yatta!” in a voice that rattled the windows. He was grinning all over his round face.

* * *

The sun was three hours down by the time the knock came on the Hokage’s office door, but the old man was still there. He had expected this visitor.

“Enter,” he called.

Tatami Iwashi, one of the night guards, stuck his head in. “Genma-san to see you, Hokage-sama.”

“Yes, yes, I’ve been expecting him. Send him in.”

Genma entered and sat down. He looked steadily at the Hokage, his teeth clacking against his senbon, but he said nothing.

“Were you able to get them everything they need, Genma-san?”

“Yes, Hokage-sama, they’re all well-outfitted and set up in adjacent apartments.”

“Where?”

“In the same building, incidentally, as Uzumaki Naruto. I trust you’re familiar?” Genma’s voice was calm, but it carried an edge.

“Why, yes,” said the Hokage mildly. “I do know where he lives. It is a good location; central to all Konoha has to offer, and thus well protected. An excellent choice, Genma.”

“Actually, it was their choice,” Genma replied. Clack, clack, clack, went the senbon. “And Naruto’s suggestion. We met him while shopping. He was looking for a new uniform.”

“Oh? Is he still clad in orange?”

“Well, I can’t say what he would have bought if left to his own devices.” Genma drawled. “Possibly nothing. We found him sprawled on his back in the street, having been thrown out of a tailor’s.” His tone gave away little, but the Hokage suspected that if Genma had been another ninja--one not so carefully controlled--he would be radiating killing intent.

“Which tailor?” the Hokage asked in turn, his voice ominous.

“We were still near your tower, Hokage-sama,” said Genma. Some of the anger was leaving his voice as he noted the Hokage’s own. “I have personally marked it _kin_.”

“I shall inspect it tomorrow,” said the Hokage.

“I took Naruto shopping with us,” Genma went on. “If he’s going to be a ninja, he can’t be running around in bright colors like that. He’s now in possession of eight new uniforms, in green, blue, tan, and black. He also has a fresh set of ninja tools. You should have seen the state of the kunai he had on him.”

“He does practice very hard,” said the Hokage.

“That’s not what I mean, Hokage-sama. They were dull as hell, covered in nicks, and some of them were _bent_. I don’t know what he paid for them, but they weren’t worth the metal they were cast from…and from what I saw, he probably paid a premium.” 

The Hokage nodded gravely, his eyes shut tight. He knew, in a general sense, how most of the villagers thought of the boy. It was, the Hokage reflected, probably one of his bigger mistakes. He had told--privately of course--certain villagers who had lost family members in the attack twelve years ago, that Naruto was the Kyuubi’s Jinchuuriki. He had hoped that knowing the beast was safely sealed would offer them closure for their loved ones’ deaths. It seemed, however, that all he had done was give them a target for their rage and hate.

“The three you assigned to me seem fond of him, I must say,” said Genma, interrupting the Hokage’s darkening thoughts. “Naruto stayed with us through dinner, and chimed in when I mentioned looking for an apartment. Well,” he added, smirking, “that wasn’t exactly the first time he spoke up. From the way he asked questions during dinner, you’d think he hadn’t been at the Academy for years to learn the basics. I don’t think any sensei has ever given him the time of day, except for Iruka.”

“Sadly, I expect you are correct,” the Hokage murmured.

Genma stared at him, senbon frozen, for a moment, before he said, “I’d like your permission to make some changes to the standard training program, Hokage-sama.”

“What do you mean, changes?”

“As I said to the three you assigned to me during dinner--as I’m sure you must have noticed yourself--they don’t need any training to make them a team. They need ninja training, of course, but not _squad_ training like the other graduates do. They’re already an effective team; each of them knows the other two like the backs of their two hands.”

The Hokage nodded, waiting for Genma to continue.

“I want to be allowed to split them up sometimes,” Genma drawled. The Hokage opened his mouth, but Genma seemed to guess what he was going to say, and forestalled him. “I don’t mean for missions. They won’t be doing even D-rank missions for a while anyway. I mean for training purposes.” 

“How do you mean?”

“I want each of them to spend time with other genin squads. One at a time, away from each other. I want them to work with all of the Jonin-sensei, and thus the other genin, as much as possible. Other Jonin may be better able to tutor them at certain skills, and it will encourage the newcomers to make new friends. I’m not worried about upsetting the friendship they have; they’re already as close as a squad that has gone to war together. But it will suit them to get to know the other shinobi, as they would have at the Academy.”

The Hokage sat in thought for a long moment, but eventually he nodded. “I can find no flaw in your reasoning, Genma. In any case, what you are requesting is not really forbidden in any way, it is simply not commonly done. You do not need my permission, but you do have my blessing.”

Genma stood from his chair, bowed in thanks, and said, “Then, please excuse me, Hokage-sama. I must meet my students properly in the morning, and I think I’d better spend what’s left of my night working on lesson plans.” He crossed the room and pulled open the door, smirking gently, but the Hokage wasn’t offended. It was Genma’s way.

“Good night then, new sensei Genma,” the Hokage shot back.

Genma clacked his senbon in response as the door closed behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh. That took a few days. I had to keep rearranging things so they would follow a logical order of events, but I'm pretty happy with it now.  
> It's kind of a stretch to call the Golden Trio 'genin' at this point, since they have literally no ninja skills, but the Hokage specifically declared them to be ninja, not students. They should be able to make up time fairly quickly under Genma's tutelage. I think it will also help that they're a little older than the academy kids. Their minds and bodies are more mature, and should be able to develop faster. Plus, chakra and magic work very similarly, so they probably won't have as much difficulty with chakra control as most genin.  
> They also have a very clear and present war back home to motivate them, whereas the Konoha kids grew up in peacetime--or at least what passes for peacetime in the Elemental Nations.


	4. Many Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Genma has a chat with Kurenai, Harry has a nightmare, the Hogwarts Three are introduced to the Rookie Nine, we start to get a taste for what kind of sensei Genma is, and we learn about the Sannin.

Shiranui Genma was not a stupid man. His carefree demeanor and tendency to crack wise meant that many people didn’t take him seriously—even enemy shinobi who should know better. He had been one of the Yondaime’s elite personal guards, for kami’s sake! Yet apparently, even when he was standing behind the Hokage, all anyone ever saw when they looked at Genma was a smirk and a senbon. 

Just as well, he supposed. It meant they were more relaxed around him than they were around the silent Raidou, or the stiff-necked Aoba, or the ever-formal Iwashi. He could tell that even the genin, who should have been straight out of Academy lessons not to take _anybody_ at face value, thought they had him pegged. Genma’s answer to it all was to simply smile and joke to keep anyone from wising up. So be it. 

He’d gotten the kids settled, made his report to the Hokage, and left. No point trying to raise again the argument he had already lost earlier in the day. The Hokage had made up his mind, and when the Hokage asked, he didn’t exactly have to say ‘please’. He _had_ said please, of course, and had probably meant it, but the nature of the order was perfectly clear to both of them: whether he liked it or not, Genma was now officially relieved of his guard duties, and was a jonin-sensei to the three foreigners.

There were a few people that Genma knew he didn’t fool with his casual façade. Raidou, for one, was far more perceptive than he let on. Hayate didn’t miss much. Nara Shikaku and Morino Ibiki saw through everyone, and Hatake Kakashi wasn’t far behind them. Then there was the Sandaime, of course, and the Yondaime—but who could expect to fool the greatest shinobi in the land of Fire? And…there was Kushina. _Habanero-hime…_

Yuuhi Kurenai also knew the truth, though for a rather different reason. She was sharp, but she hadn’t seen through the front—rather, he had seen through hers and had approached her when she was promoted to jonin. After the accident that had befallen her genin squad, she had lost herself in her study of genjutsu, psychology, and basically anything else she could get her hands on. Genma, who happened to share her philosophy that there was no such thing as useless knowledge, had pulled a few strings to help her get access to the Hokage’s private library when she wanted. In return, the reserved kunoichi began slowly warming to him, and Genma had a confidant. That the Sandaime had convinced or connived her into becoming one of the new jonin-sensei was all for the best, since Genma needed someone to commiserate after his meeting with the Hokage.

He sought out Kurenai right where he had known she’d be: having a solitary meal and some warmed sake at her favorite restaurant. Genma had been there with her once or twice—the owner was a friend of her old sensei; a retired shinobi who had lost half his leg to an explosive tag trap during the war with Iwagakure. Genma nodded to the owner where he sat behind the bar, and slid into the seat opposite Kurenai, knowing full-well that half the men of Konoha would have killed to sit down across from her…and would have been killed if they’d tried. There was a second saucer for sake on the table, and bottle was large enough for two. 

“You were expecting me,” he said slyly.

“Of course,” she said acerbically. “Who else would you complain to? Raidou?”

At this Genma started laughing. Kurenai always did know what to say. 

“And how about you?” Genma shot back, a gentle smirk playing across his lips and making his senbon dance. “No complaints about being strong-armed into the gig?”

“It’s high time we had a proper reconnaissance team,” she said simply. It wasn’t an answer to his question—not by a long shot—but Genma knew enough to realize that it was all he was going to get.

“Hell, at least you’re getting Academy graduates,” he said, still chuckling. “I’ve got to take the foreigners through basics that a four-year-old could do.”

“You know, you say that, but I’ve got a strange feeling about this years’ test scores.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Well…” she hesitated, glancing around, but nobody was near their table. She went on in a low voice. “I’ve spent most of the week watching them. The kids. And I’ll be damned if the pass rate makes any sense. That Uchiha brat who the Sandaime assigned to Kakashi? Itachi’s little brother? Total headcase. Highest grades in the class and no friends, no fire to him, just obsession. Haruno and Yamanaka are both airheads; the Hyuuga girl has blatant social phobias; the Nara is lazier than his father; and the Inuzuka might actually be louder than Uzumaki. And that’s not even addressing Uzumaki himself!” Her voice dropped even further. “You heard what happened. I saw Mizuki being dragged up to Ibiki today; damn near every bone in his body looked broken _before_ Ibiki started in on him. We’re supposed to believe that a kid who can produce two hundred Kage Bunshin failed the Academy graduation three times?”

Genma made himself shrug, conscious that they were still in public. “So they’re a quirky bunch. Is it really any different than any other group of shinobi?” Genma asked gently. She knew what he meant. He himself had been on a genin squad with Ebisu—now a Tokubetsu jonin personal trainer and closet pervert—and Maito Gai, who…spoke for himself, really.

Kurenai and Genma had a theory that the more talented the shinobi, the stranger their personal habits and quirks became. Asuma with his smoking, Genma with his senbon, Maito Gai with his Power of Youth rants, Kakashi with his chronic tardiness… Both of them knew full-well why Kakashi was late everywhere—it wasn’t exactly a secret, and they both understood—but he was as squirrelly as he was brilliant, with one eye in the present reading _Icha Icha_ , and one eye always on the past.

“Even so,” Kurenai went on, her voice returning to normal. “For instance…I have a hunch about the Aburame I was assigned—his grades were in the bottom third, but I think he’s way better than he lets on. At everything. I’ve worked with his clan before; they’re all very reserved, but that doesn’t mean they’re stupid.”

Genma considered this. “Well, if we’re going to teach children to be shinobi, we shouldn’t be surprised if some of them treat the Academy like an infiltration, should we?” he grunted finally.

Kurenai nodded. “Exactly.” She took a drink, and the conversation became a little more normal. “You know, I actually requested Uzumaki for my squad. Replacing Inuzuka.”

Genma’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t remember him having any particular talent for reconnaissance,” he said mildly. He wasn’t prejudiced against the kid, and neither was Kurenai; they were too clever and knew better anyway.

“Maybe not,” she said, “but his stealth and pursuit evasion could easily be chunin level or higher. He painted the Hokage monument _in broad daylight_ , and nobody noticed until he set off an explosive tag to draw the village’s attention. At least a dozen shinobi tried to chase him down, and he got away from all of them—even the ANBU pair the Sandaime set to keep an eye on him couldn’t stop him or catch him.”

“You know, you may have a point. The brat might have some potential, at that,” said Genma. “He’s already damned handy with Kage Bunshin, you know. He used it to clean up his apartment so my students could tour it.”

“He used Kage Bunshin for his _chores_?” Kurenai said incredulously. “Now I’m upset that I let the Hokage talk me out of it. He’s going to be wasted on Kakashi’s squad—neither Haruno nor Uchiha respect him at all, and Kakashi…well, even in the best case scenario he’s going to have his hands full dealing with the Uchiha brat.”

“Well, maybe you’ll get a chance anyway,” said Genma. “I spoke with the Hokage just now about a special order of training for my assigned squad, since they’ll be taking everything from the top.”

“Special training?” Kurenai asked, curious.

“Remember what Gai said the last time we all went out drinking? That he’d take pity and teach any student of Kakashi’s?”

Kurenai smiled. “And Kakashi looked up, blinked, and asked if he’d said something.” Genma’s answering grin made the senbon clack.

“Well, the idea stuck with me. ‘Power of Youth’ aside, there’s no better taijustu instructor than Maito Gai, and all of my students are going to need help with the basics. If I can pin Kakashi down to teach them a little about ninjutsu, so much the better. You get the idea.”

“And you asked the Hokage about this?” said Kurenai, sounding incredulous.

“I phrased it as getting them acquainted with everyone in the village, and encouraging them to make new friends among the genin at the same time.” Genma smirked. “Worked like a charm. Of course, Hokage-sama told me that what I was asking wasn’t actually forbidden, just not done. If I have anything to say about it, it’s going to start being done. Interested?”

“Oh, my, yes,” Kurenai said, smiling slightly back at him. “You think any of your students will take an interest in genjutsu?”

“Maybe the girl?” he replied vaguely. “She’s definitely clever enough for it. I’ll have to let you know once I get properly acquainted with them tomorrow. The tall one with the red hair, I’m looking forward to introducing to Asuma. Ron reminds me a bit of the Nara brat that Asuma took such a shine to. He’s also expressed an interest in bukijutsu.”

“And the third? The one with the scar and the glasses?”

“Dunno yet,” Genma admitted. “The other two look to him instinctively, so he’s gotta have his own strengths, but I haven’t seen anything extraordinary yet. Time will tell. Action before words, y’know.”

Kurenai nodded. “If that’s the case, I’m definitely going to take you up on the offer if I can get you to take on the Hyuuga girl. More friends can only be more encouragement to break her out of those social phobias.”

“I think that was the Hokage’s plan when he put Uzumaki on Kakashi’s squad with Uchiha, you know,” said Genma, watching Kurenai out of the corner of his eye as she stood to leave.

“Yes, it was…and I hope it doesn’t backfire like I think it will,” she answered darkly. She nodded to the owner, left enough money on the table to cover her food and all of the drinks, and left without another word. Genma wasn’t offended. It was how Kurenai was. He too nodded to the owner, rose slowly, and ambled back out of the café. No sense in damaging his usual casual demeanor just to get to sleep a few seconds earlier.

* * *

_The sight of Voldemort, rising from a steaming stone cauldron the size of a dragon’s egg, filled Harry with a nameless terror. The Death Eaters cackled around him, but the sounds of their laughter faded away, until there was nothing but Voldemort, stalking toward him. And then, Voldemort seemed to shudder and split, not unlike a snake about to shed its skin._

_Harry’s eyes closed with horror, but he forced them open again. When he did, there were two men where Voldemort had stood—both tall and thin; both paler than a corpse, with slanting, staring eyes and vertical slitted pupils; both with flat nostrils and wide, lipless mouths that recalled a serpent; both smiling the same mirthless smile, and glaring with the same hatred at any who would stand in their way._

_The only differences between them was that where Voldemort was bald, the other hand long, lank, greasy black hair that fell to his waist; and that the stranger’s mad eyes were yellow, where Voldemort’s were red._

_They hissed at him in unison, and Harry realized it was Parseltongue. Both said the same thing:_

_“I am coming for you, boy…”_

* * *

Harry woke with a strangled yell, as he had done most nights since the Third Task. Disoriented again, he flailed for his glasses and his wand on the bedside table. His hand smacked into a very hard wall, the jolt of pain bringing him properly awake. He looked around blearily, and saw that the room he was in, and the sky out the window near the foot of his bed, were both very dark. He felt cautiously toward the other side of the bed with his uninjured hand, and found a bedside table. He put his glasses on, but his wand wasn’t there. Belatedly, he remembered putting it under his pillow as he went to sleep. He slipped his fingers under the pillow long enough to feel the narrow wooden stick, but did not pull it out.

He looked at the alarm clock that he had purchased yesterday, which looked basically the same as the ones back at Hogwarts. It was nearly four in the morning. He really needed to stop waking up like this.

Genma had told them that they were to go to the Academy—the building where they had first arrived yesterday—at noon. There, they would be introduced to the other genin by Iruka, and then Genma would pick them up.

That Harry would have a nightmare about Voldemort was nothing new. He had experienced those for years now…though the events in the graveyard of Little Hangleton after the Third task had intensified them of late—he had nearly cursed Madam Pomfrey his first night in the Hospital Wing. Who was the other man, though; the pale man with long black hair and yellow snakes’ eyes, who spoke to Harry in the language of serpents?

Between the pain in his hand and the nightmare, Harry found himself staring out the window for a long time, until the sun rose, and he heard Hermione bustling around through the wall he was leaning against.

* * *

Umino Iruka pinched the bridge of his scarred nose as he leaned on his crutches. The level of noise from the genin in the classroom behind him never seemed to get low enough to be called a dull roar, and it was hopeless trying to give them a final lesson when they were all far too excited about having graduated, and about being assigned to their jonin-sensei later today. So instead, he simply stepped outside the classroom to ponder the teams and await the jonin. 

Team 8 would be on the fast-track for scouting and recon. They didn’t know it, but they were assigned to Yuuhi Kurenai, one of the few jonin that Iruka really respected for not being prejudiced against Naruto. Team 10 was, of course, the new generation’s Ino-Shika-Chou, and would shortly be picked up by Sarutobi Asuma, the Hokage’s son. Team 7, Iruka could see having a hard time. Uchiha Sasuke, who spoke little and seemed to think only of avenging his clan. Haruno Sakura, who spoke plenty and seemed to think only of Sasuke. And, of course, Naruto, who talked nonstop and thought little, unless it was about ramen or becoming Hokage. Three obsessives, shortly to be placed under an equally-obsessive sensei. Iruka shook his head.

As Iruka waited, he saw three people come around the corner. Not recognizing them, he started and began to reach for a kunai, before he realized that it was the three foreign kids that he and Ebisu had lectured yesterday. They had evidently been shopping, because they were all wearing ninja gear in forest colors, and sporting Konoha hitai-ite. 

Iruka didn’t quite know what to make of the Hokage’s decision to declare what amounted to three foreign civilians to be shinobi of the leaf. He’d had to explain what chakra was to them, and how it was channelled, three times before they all seemed to get it. At least, before the two boys got it. The bushy-haired girl—who, he saw as she approached, had tied her hair carefully back today—seemed to pick it up almost instantly, and had spent the rest of the lecture with her eyes shut and a look of intense concentration on her face. She wore a similar look now. In fact, they all did as they approached Iruka, who smiled, trying to set them at ease.

“Welcome,” he greeted them. “This is the room where your sensei will meet you. Let me introduce you to the other genin.” He started to turn, and grimaced. “You might want to cover your ears.”

He slid the door back and led the three youths inside. The appearance of three strangers managed what Iruka himself could not—the room fell quiet as everyone stared at the newcomers. Not wishing them to feel too awkward, Iruka called out, “Class, I’d like to introduce you to three new peers. This is Pottaa Harii, U-iizurii Ronarudo, and Gurenjaa Haamaionii. They’ve come a long way to train as shinobi of the leaf, and they will comprise Team 9. I expect you all to make them feel welcome.”

* * *

Before anyone else could say anything Naruto had bounded down from his seat to greet them, and began to usher them toward empty seats nearby. Iruka smiled, and began to call the roll for the other teams.

“Team 7 will consist of Uzumaki Naruto—” at this, the excitable boy let out a whoop, “—Haruno Sakura—” Naruto raised his arms in triumph as the rosette kunoichi hung her head, “—and Uchiha Sasuke.” Now Naruto hung his head and Sakura leapt up. She turned to stick out her tongue at Yamanaka Ino, several rows back.

Iruka chose to ignore this, and went on, “Team 8 will consist of Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata, and Inuzuka Kiba—” Iruka was interrupted by a high-pitched bark, and Kiba called out “And Akamaru!” Iruka nodded, which placated him.

“Team 10 will consist of Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Chouji!” None of them looked surprised at this, which he supposed was fair. They must have expected it as much as everyone else.

“That is all of you, of course, so I will leave this list here,” he pinned the roll to the wall beside the door, “and leave you all to get acquainted with our new friends, and await your sensei. They should be arriving shortly. It has been a great pleasure teaching you all this past year, and I wish you the very best of luck as genin!” His eyes lingered on Naruto for a moment, before he bowed to the room at large, and left.

Ron and Hermione immediately began fending off questions and asking their own, and Hermione had soon launched into an impromptu lecture on how to properly pronounce their names. The kids all picked it up fairly quickly, but Harry had a feeling it would be another story when it came to the adults, who would be more stuck-in-their-ways as far as linguistics. After that, Hermione found herself cornered by two of the other girls—the blonde and the rosette.

Ron, meanwhile, was deep in conversation with a black-haired boy who had his chair tipped back on two legs. He had asked the room at large if anyone played chess, but none of them knew what it was. When he began to explain the rules, the boy—who Harry suddenly remembered was called Nara Shikamaru—had cut in, saying it sounded like a game he knew called Shogi. Ron, of course, had never heard of it, but he listened raptly as Shikamaru explained how the game went. He had a faraway look in his eye that Harry recognized from his own games of chess with Ron. It was the look Ron got when he was getting absorbed in the game, starting to think six moves ahead, and planning Harry’s inevitable defeat. Beside them was a large boy who offered Ron a bag of crisps, which he quickly accepted before asking Shikamaru another question.

Harry looked around. After greeting them, Naruto had sat back down and folded his hands over his stomach, looking ill. Presently, he had his head down on the desk. The boy with the hooded jacket on Harry’s right was intent on playing with his dog…or was he talking to it? There was a scowling boy with black hair almost as untidy as Harry’s sitting in the first seat by the door and apparently brooding; and a taller boy wearing a long coat and sunglasses despite being inside on a warm day. Neither looked very approachable. Sitting directly behind Harry though, at the back of the room in the seat Harry would have taken for himself if he had come here for class, was a girl wearing what looked like a parka. She had short, dark hair that seemed almost blue in the light, and which hung down in front of her eyes. Her cheeks looked a little flushed, and she was pressing her forefingers together nervously. Frankly, she didn’t seem like a much better prospect than the others, but she _did_ seem less likely to snap at him if he just said hello.

He twisted fully around in his chair and said, hesitantly, “Hello?”

She looked up, startled, and he was shocked to see that her eyes were entirely white. Was she blind?

“A-ano…” she stammered. The translation charm didn’t interpret that, it was more like she was stalling for time, or marshalling her thoughts. “G-good day,” she said, finally.

“Did Iruka-sensei say your name was Hinata?” Harry persisted.

She ducked her head again, blushing. “Hai.” An affirmative.

He soldiered on. “My name is Harry. It is good to meet you.” He approximated a bow from his chair.

She blushed, if possible, even more fiercely. Her eyes glanced to the side—toward Naruto, Harry thought—before she took a deep breath and her color normalized a little. “The pleasure is mine,” she said. “Are…you and your friends…are you friends with Naruto-kun?” Her voice was pitched so that only he could hear her.

The translation charm rendered her chosen suffix in several ways at once, before latching onto the likeliest interpretation: ‘an extremely close or childhood friend, or to an emotional attachment’. He blinked, and shook his head. There was a lot of meaning in those little suffixes. Then the question caught up with him. She wanted to know if they were friends with Naruto. Did that mean she was a friend of his? But then why was she sitting away from him with her head down? From what Harry had seen, Naruto didn’t have any close friends, which seemed to rule out the first half of the translation. Which left…emotional attachment.

Harry smiled. “Of course,” he said. “Well, I mean, we only met him yesterday, but we had dinner with him and he’s pretty friendly.”

“H-hai. Naruto is always cheerful and kind but…most people are not friendly to him.”

“Why not?” Harry leaned forward, because her voice was getting even more quiet.

“I do not know. He—he is known as a prankster, but that would not account for the treatment he receives. I had wondered…had wondered if you were his friends, if you could explain.”

“Search me,” said Harry, as the bearlike Sarutobi Asuma leaned in through the door below and called for Team 10. “We could probably ask him, though. It’s not like he can’t have noticed—”

But she shook her head furiously. “No, no. That would only hurt him. I—” she hesitated, glancing at Naruto again. “I saw him after the graduation exam yesterday. The first one. He didn’t pass. He sat outside alone while everyone else greeted their family. Even there, when he was just sitting quietly and looking so sad, I heard parents telling their children to stay away from him.”

Harry scowled. Why would they do that? Vaguely, he realized Hinata was still talking.

“That is why I asked; because he greeted you today. I had hoped he and I would be on the same team, but maybe we will be able to work together in future. I would be happier to know he had some friends, since nobody else will talk to him.” She was babbling a little, now.

“You know,” Harry said steadily, “I bet he’d like to get to know another friend.”

Hinata blushed again, but smiled at him shyly. Harry decided not to push the point. Before he could speak again, though, the door to the classroom slid open and a woman’s voice called out, “Team 8?”

Hinata stood up, as did the tall boy with the sunglasses, and the kid with the dog. As the latter rose, the dog jumped to his shoulder, and then settled down on his head. Harry said, “Good luck” to Hinata as she passed, and she smiled at him, the blush finally clearing from her face. Harry always jumped when he saw Team 8’s sensei because of her red eyes. He had nearly pulled his wand when she was introduced yesterday, but her pupils were normal, and her eyes smiled in a way that Voldemort’s never could.

Genma was right behind her. “Come on, you three,” he said, as Kurenai left with her squad. Harry saw both Hinata and, curiously, Kurenai glance wistfully back at Naruto as they left. Maybe Kurenai had wanted him for her team?

Harry, Ron, and Hermione filed out of the row and headed toward Genma, following Team 8 down the hall. As they left the room, Harry looked back at Naruto and winked. “Behave yourself,” he mouthed. The blond boy grinned back.

Genma led them out of the building and turned South down the street, away from the Hokage monument. Kurenai was just finishing talking to her squad. “…meet me there as fast as you can.” Her hands blurred into a seal and she disappeared in a flurry of wind-blown leaves. The three genin all leapt straight up to the rooftops and tore away southward, the boy with the dog on his head quickly outstripping the other two.

All three of the Hogwarts students stared, jaws open. Three kids, who only looked old enough to be second-years at most, had just jumped at least twenty vertical feet like it was nothing. Genma chuckled at the looks on their faces. 

“You’ll be able to do that soon enough,” he promised. “You’ve got to learn to crawl before you can walk, though.”

They followed him along the streets in roughly the same direction, though at a walking pace. As always seemed to happen when he was out on the streets in Konoha, Harry’s neck prickled. He felt like he was being watched. Knowing better than to doubt his instincts, he asked Genma about it.

“Oh, that’s probably ANBU. You’ll learn to distinguish between that and others watching you.”

“What’s ANBU?” said Ron. The translation spell rendered ‘Dark Side’, but everyone said it like an acronym.

“It’s short for Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai,” said Genma carelessly. ‘Special Forces and Assassination Unit’ rendered the charm, or something like that.

“They’re the most elite forces; answering directly to the Hokage,” Genma went on. “Even their identities are classified.” They were passing an alleyway when Genma paused, and led them down it. There, in the shadows, he stopped and said, “Here, I’ll introduce you. Cat!”

Cat? Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other, confused. Genma had called out _Neko_ , which definitely meant ‘Cat’. A moment later, there was a flurry of leaves like the one they had seen when Kurenai disappeared, and another person was standing beside Genma.

The newcomer was shrouded in a hooded cloak hiding long purple hair, which Harry thought that might belong to a woman. Beneath the cloak, she was strongly muscled, and wearing grey armour over dark clothes She also had a sword strapped to her back that was even longer than Genma’s. Most strikingly though, her face was hidden by a porcelain mask painted with three red stripes…and shaped like a cat.

“Kids, this is Cat; she’s guarding you while you’re here.” said Genma, smirking. He turned to Cat. “Who else is assigned to the kids?”

“Lizard,” she replied quietly. She sounded annoyed that he’d called her down.

“What about Ocelot?” Genma asked.

“Guarding the usual. Lizard and I were reassigned since that one will be working under Hound.”

“He’s not Hound anymore, Cat; he’s with the regular forces,” Genma corrected.

“Is there any point to this?” Cat interrupted him.

“The kids said they felt like they were being watched. I thought they should meet the watchers so they don’t get frantic just because they feel eyes on them.” He turned to regard his three students, a grin crossing his face. “I’m also going to be sharpening their eyes, and every time they spot one of you, they’re getting rewarded.”

Cat sighed heavily and vanished again without another word. Genma led them back out of the alley, laughing all the way down the street.

* * *

Genma led them to into a fenced-off area, which he declared was Training Ground Seventeen. It was grassy, and there was a small pond and a few trees within the fence. There was also a small fire pit surrounded by stones, a picnic table, and what looked like a single standing wall, and a flagpole without a flag. This was where the majority of their training would take place, so unless they were told differently, they were to meet him here at seven each morning after eating breakfast.

“But that means we’ll have to get up even earlier than for class,” Ron complained.

Genma’s eyes narrowed, though his smile never left. “It’s my job to make you three into shinobi. You’re way behind the other genin and you need all the catch-up time you can get. If it were up to me, you wouldn’t have weekends off; I’d have you out here seven days a week! Now, I won’t hear any complaints. Isn’t there a war on, where you came from?” Ron looked at the ground. Hermione’s face held a determined expression.

“Now,” Genma repeated slowly and deliberately. “You will all meet me here every morning at seven. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sensei,” they said together.

Genma’s face softened, and they knew this smile was real. “Not bad, kids; that was probably better than some of the graduates. Now, there’s not a lot of time today, and I prefer to do taijutsu training in the morning, so we’ll work on chakra some more. First, though, give me ten laps around the inside of the fence.” Knowing better than to complain, they all set off. Harry might’ve had a slightly easier time of it, being a Quidditch player, but Seeking was more about sharp eyes than athletic endurance, and all of them were soon out of breath. They stayed together as they went around and around, and then tumbled to the grass in front of a smirking Genma.

“Soon enough that’ll take you a quarter of the time and it won’t even wind you,” he promised, his senbon glinting in the sunlight. “Now, hand seals. Show me the sign of the rat. Now the ox. Now the horse.”

All three of them quickly discovered that Genma was an easygoing sensei as long as they were trying their best. He always seemed to know when one of them was slacking off, and didn’t hesitate to let his displeasure show. As long as they were working hard, he was always there with a smile and a quip; with a correction to their posture or another patient explanation.

They spent the rest of the afternoon trying to channel their chakra. Genma went over the Academy-standard lecture again, then started to demonstrate the things that chakra could do.

“Chakra flows through its own system of vessels and capillaries,” he explained. “It’s not a physical system, it just shadows the actual circulatory system. The chakra system originates here,” he indicated a spot on his chest, in the soft spot between his floating ribs, “and travels outward from there. It is controlled, of course, by the brain, just like everything else. As you were taught yesterday, chakra is the energy that comes from a blending of the physical and the spiritual. The more your physical body trains, and the more you study and gain knowledge, the more chakra you will be able to generate.” He paused. “You three shouldn’t have too much trouble there, I think. You all already have a chakra capacity at least equal to second-year genin,” he added.

“Anyway, there are three hundred sixty-one tenketsu in the body, which are like gateways or nodes along the chakra system. With practice, you can learn to release chakra steadily from these tenketsu, energizing the surrounding cells and letting you run faster, jump higher, see sharper, and so on. After long enough, doing this will become such second nature that you won’t need to think about it, and you’ll be at least slightly chakra-enhanced at all times.” He paused. Hermione had her hand up. “Yes?”

“Could you give us a demonstration?” she asked. “Show us your own speed or jumping, with and without chakra?”

Genma nodded and shut his eyes for a moment, depressing his chakra levels. He crouched and then jumped, rising no higher than they would have expected. When he hit the ground, he tumbled and rose to his feet at a run. He reached the fence and came back, skidding to a halt. “That was just me. Normally, though, it would be more like this.”

This time when he jumped, he rose easily fifty feet. All of them craned their necks, and saw him throw something in the direction of the gate. He tumbled again as he hit the ground, and dashed away almost faster than they could see. He arrived by the gate and caught the thing he’d thrown—one of his kunai.

“And that’s not even using any jutsu,” he called over to them as he put the kunai away. “Watch. Shunshin no jutsu.” He brought his hands together in what Harry was pretty sure was the seal of the ram. He disappeared completely. In the blink of an eye, he was standing back where he had started the lecture.

“Shunshin no jutsu is a flash step technique,” he explained, as calmly as if he hadn’t just moved ten yards in half a second. “You temporarily flood the body with chakra in order to move at extreme speed for a moment. It’s only good for one movement at a time, though; and it’ll eat through your chakra pretty fast if you’re not careful.

“Now, back to tenketsu. The most commonly-used tenketsu are the hands, feet, and throat. We won’t bother with the throat, since you don’t have the discipline to be creating any elements just yet. Chakra channelled through the hands and feet can be used for combat as well as movement, since chakra increases strength as well as speed. One of the sannin, Lady Tsunade, was famous for her chakra control, which allowed her to punch with the strength of a hundred men.”

“What’s a sannin?” Ron interrupted, his hand raised.

Genma paused. “That’s a history lesson. I’ll tell you about Densetsu no Sannin over dinner.” The translation spell rendered the foreign words as ‘three legendary shinobi’.

He returned to the lecture. “Chakra channelled through the feet, likewise, can make you move faster and more efficiently, and also to connect you what you’re standing on or keep you from sinking into mud or water.” 

Hermione raised her hand again, but rather than wait for her to ask, Genma simply paced over to the wall standing by itself, placed a foot against it, and continued to walk up it as though gravity had ceased to apply to him. He reached the top of the wall and backflipped off, which launched him toward the pond. He turned a flip in the air and landed on his feet, standing on the surface of the water as easily as he had stood on the ground. He chuckled. “You use your chakra to maintain the surface tension of the water and distribute your weight,” he explained as he came back to them. 

“For today, more channelling practice.” Genma hopped into the tree, plucked three leaves, and then handed one to each of his students. “Once you’re confident you’re channelling your chakra, concentrate into your forehead. Press the leaf there and will it to stay.” He borrowed Harry’s leaf to demonstrate, sticking it to his forehead. He leaned over, and the leaf fluttered in the wind, but stayed in place as through glued there.

Soon they were all trying, and Harry found himself wondering if this exercise was what caused Konoha to use a leaf as the symbol on its shinobi’s hitai-ite. Genma kept encouraging them, walking them through the steps of gathering their chakra until he said he could feel that they had gotten it right. It was very unintuitive for the wizards to summon up magic—or rather, chakra—but not immediately cast a spell with it. 

However, Genma explained, being able to control and manipulate chakra was far more important than simply using it for jutsus…and that when they did get around to using ninjutsu, it would be far easier and they would be more efficient in their usage of chakra, and therefore less likely to run out and suffer the effects of exhaustion. Efficiency, he summarized, stood head and shoulders above raw power, and beat it every time.

It made sense to Harry. Even if you didn’t have the fastest broomstick, you could still beat your opponent to the Snitch if you flew better. Ron compared it to chess, naturally. The knight wasn’t the strongest piece, but its ability to pass other pieces made it easily the most versatile, and often able to capture more powerful ones. Hermione nodded. She had always seemed to be better at managing magic than the two boys, able to achieve the same effect with half the expense.

* * *

None of them had managed it by the time Genma called a halt. The sun sat low in the sky, and he led them on a few more laps of the training ground as a cooldown. When they had finished, they were all famished. Ron’s stomach growled loudly, making Genma smirk.

“I’ll treat you to dinner tonight, to celebrate your first day as genin,” he said. “From now on you’ll be responsible for your own food and finances, though. I’ll give you a grocery list before we leave so you can pick things up tonight. You kids feel like barbecue?”

He took them to a nearby restaurant. “Tabehoudai no maruyaki,” he said, pointing at the sign. The charm gave them a confused impression that Harry eventually sorted out as ‘barbecue buffet’. They followed him inside and found a high-ceilinged, smoky room that smelled strongly and deliciously of cooking meat. There were several booths and tables of varying sizes, all of which had a grill set into them, so that the customer could cook their food however they pleased, and eat as much as they wished. A man in the back at a long table raised a hand in greeting, and Genma did likewise. Harry, following, realized that the man was Sarutobi Asuma, who was eating with Team 10.

Chouji was sitting alone on his side of the table, across from Asuma and Shikamaru. Ron slid in next to the large boy, and Harry sat beside Ron. Hermione sat down politely beside Ino, and Genma took the seat across from her. Soon they were all settled and eating. Just as he had the previous night, Ron seemed to have struck up an eating contest, this time with Chouji. At the same time, he had drawn Shikamaru and Asuma into explaining the rules to a game called Go. Hermione was nodding politely as Ino chattered about her training, her family’s flower shop, and a crush she had on Uchiha Sasuke. Hermione kept trying to turn the conversation toward ninjutsu by asking Genma questions, but Ino always started talking again before Genma could. Harry saw his sensei’s grin getting wider as Hermione’s expression grew stonier.

Harry’s mind was focused on their training from earlier, and on everything that Genma had managed to teach them so far about the possible applications of chakra. Genma had moved so fast… Voldemort and the Death Eaters would have a hard time hitting him if he could learn to move that fast. Then he remembered that Genma had mentioned a history lesson over dinner. When he reminded Genma of this, his sensei grinned.

“All right.” He turned to Asuma, “I mentioned Lady Tsunade and the strength of a hundred to them during training today, so I promised to tell them about the sannin during dinner. Mind helping me fill them in?”

Asuma grunted. “Densetsu no Sannin are perhaps the most powerful and most famous shinobi team of this age. Each of them is incredibly powerful and knowledgeable in their own right, and as a team they were nigh-undefeatable. They were my father’s pupils,” he told the table. “His genin team, his prodigies, and his failures.”

“Failures?” asked Harry.

“So he always says. He’s wrong, of course, but he blames himself… Well, you’ll understand once you know the story.”

Here Genma picked up the narrative. “The Sandaime taught many students. He has a gift for it; people called him The Professor. But nobody ever held a candle to these three: Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru. All of them were talented—they graduated the Academy together at the age of six. Tsunade was very gifted at chakra control even as a genin. Orochimaru was a true prodigy and seemed to excel at everything he did. Jiraiya was a loud and clumsy braggart of a boy, determined to outdo Orochimaru and impress Tsunade…and who never really managed to do either, as the stories go. However, once they began to work together as a team they were unstoppable.

“They took on more missions than the other teams of their generation put together, and even when they were promoted and their genin squad was dissolved, they continued to work together often. During the Second Shinobi World War, they fought for Konoha against our enemies in the land of Wind, the land of Earth, and the land of Rain. The latter had perhaps the single most powerful combatant in the war: a man named Hanzou. It was he who named the three Konoha shinobi as Densetsu no Sannin, for being able to fight him to a standstill.

“They were heroes again during the Third Shinobi World War, maybe fifteen years ago, but by this time they were drifting apart, all seeking their own goals. Tsunade had become a specialist in the Healing arts, and Jiraiya in the Summoning Jutsu and various other Ninjutsu. At that time, nobody knew what Orochimaru was doing…that, we found out later. By the time the war ended, all of them had left Konoha. Jiraiya left to walk the lands and learn more as a hermit, as well as to keep writing his books. Tsunade lost her precious people to the war, and disappeared, completely disillusioned with the Shinobi world. Orochimaru was discovered to have been performing illegal experiments involving genetics on children of the village, and was exiled. He announced the immediate revocation of his loyalty to Konoha and his intention to destroy the village, and became a missing-nin. The Sandaime never forgave himself for allowing Orochimaru to harm the children of the village, or for letting him go when he fled and declared himself Konoha’s enemy.”

A long silence followed the story until Asuma added, as gently as his gravelly voice could manage, “Three shinobi who are all powerful enough to become Hokage, and all have left us…but even today the name Densetsu no Sannin commands respect, awe, and fear.”

They finished their meal in relative quiet. Ron kept pace with Chouji from the moment he sat down, but of course, the other boy had been there for a while already, and so had eaten more. He made arrangements to meet with Asuma and Shikamaru that weekend to learn the games they had been talking about, and Hermione promised to visit the Yamanaka Flower shop to help decorate her new apartment.

* * *

Genma walked them all the way home, at one point indicating a chimney on a roof nearby. They squinted, and realized there was a hooded figure crouched in the chimney’s shadow. The figure, apparently realizing he’d been seen, stood for long enough to salute Genma before crouching down again and vanishing. This ANBU’s mask was different to Cat’s, so Harry surmised that it must have been Lizard.

Ron and Hermione bid everyone goodnight and shut their doors, but Harry said, “Genma-sensei, could I ask you something?”

Genma nodded and followed Harry inside, taking his shoes off at the door. He didn’t seem perturbed by Harry’s lack of furniture, and sat himself easily on the floor, legs folded beneath him, waiting for Harry to speak. Now that the moment had come, Harry was embarrassed, but this was the sort of thing he would have reported to Professor Dumbledore if they were at Hogwarts, so he felt like he needed to tell someone.

“This may sound strange, sensei, but please don’t laugh,” Harry warned. Genma said nothing, but tilted his head, waiting for Harry to continue. Harry sighed, then told Genma about the nightmare he’d had. Genma listened to him explain about the night Voldemort had returned, and the basis of the nightmare that had plagued him since. When Harry came to the part where last night’s dream differed, however, Genma blinked. Harry told him how Voldemort had seemed to split into two people, who had both hissed at Harry—though Harry kept the bit about parseltongue to himself.

“You said one of the people in the dream still looked like this…Vorudemouto that you know. What did the other man look like?”

“He was just as tall and just as pale, but he had long, black hair down to his waist and yellow eyes with vertical pupils,” said Harry. 

For the second time in two days, Genma’s senbon fell from his lips. This time he managed to catch it. He held it in his hands and stared at Harry, mouth agape. Harry thought he was struggling not to ask Harry if he was sure.

“Have you ever seen anyone like that?” Genma asked instead.

“No,” said Harry. “The only person who looked anything like that was Voldemort. Well, my Potions teacher had similar hair, but his isn’t that long and otherwise doesn’t look like that.”

Genma was still staring at him.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked. “Who is he?”

“You just gave a perfect description of Orochimaru of the sannin. If you’ve never seen him before, then…” He ran a hand through his hair, then got to his feet. “Come with me. The Hokage should be informed of this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a review asking for longer chapters, so...here you go?
> 
> Have I paid homage enough to _Team 8_? I don't think I have. You should go read it.
> 
> About their names: As near as I can tell, the katakana would be:  
> ポッター ハリー “Pottā Harī”,  
> ウィーズリー ロナルド “U~īzurī Ronarudo”, and  
> グレンジャー “Gurenjā Hāmaionī”  
> I just replaced the accented vowels with doubles as per usual. This won't come up often, since the characters are learning how to say their names correctly, but I thought it'd be fun to write out.
> 
> Also **w00t** , I managed to use Genma's catchphrase. A variation of it, anyway.


	5. Learning...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry talks to the Hokage, we get a peek at what the future may have in store for the Trio, they get on with their first week of training...and learn some things about themselves.

Tatami Iwashi and Yamashiro Aoba were on duty when Genma and Harry arrived at the back of the Academy, where the gate opened onto a narrow staircase leading to the Hokage’s office. Genma clacked his senbon in acknowledgement, laid a hand on his student’s shoulder and made to continue, but Aoba held out a hand to stop them.

“It is late,” he said stiffly. “Hokage-sama should not be disturbed.”

Genma stared at him. He was not, strictly speaking, Aoba’s superior any longer, since he was no longer with the guard platoon…but he had known the man since they were both trainees at the Academy. It was not so much Aoba’s words, which were the same that he would have directed to any other person who tried to disturb the Hokage; it was that he was addressing them to Genma as if to a stranger. As if they hadn’t worked together for the last nearly fifteen years.

Rather than comment, however, Genma replied in a cool voice, “Hokage-sama wished for me to make regular reports on my squad’s condition and progress. I have been alerted by my student,” here he squeezed Harry’s shoulder gently, “of a matter that may be of concern to Hokage-sama.” If Aoba decided that now was the time to grow a stiff neck, then Genma thought it only appropriate to reply in kind. Hell, Aoba was still getting off easy—if anyone below Aoba’s rank had tried that, Genma would have let some killing intent show through, too.

Iwashi, who had said nothing so far, was looking more and more uncomfortable. Finally, he broke in, “Let me ask whether Hokage-sama is available.”

Genma nodded in acknowledgement, and pointedly ignored Aoba for the ninety seconds it took Iwashi to return. “Hokage-sama will see you now, Genma-san.”

“Arigatou, Iwashi-san,” Genma said, directing Harry past Aoba and up the stairs to the office where he had brought the boy just yesterday.

“What was all that about?” Harry muttered, apparently to himself.

Genma decided to answer him. “I’m not certain.” Harry looked surprised that Genma had even heard him, but Genma went on, “Up until yesterday I was his commanding officer. He has always been a little haughty in private, but for him to act in such a manner while on duty is…unusual. Out of character for him, or so I would have said as recently as yesterday.”

They had reached the door of the Hokage’s office, and Genma knocked sharply. The Sandaime’s calm voice floated through the wood, “Enter.”

The Hokage looked up at them from his desk, where he was poring over what looked like a sealing scroll—perhaps, Genma thought idly, the very one Naruto had been tricked into taking, and from which the brat had learned Kage Bunshin no Jutsu.

* * *

“Ah, Genma-san. And young Harry-kun. To what do I owe the pleasure?” the old man asked with his gentle smile.

Genma nudged Harry. “Well, Hokage…uh…sama,” Harry said, taking his cues from Genma. “It’s a bit embarrassing, but it’s something I would have brought up to Professor Dumbledore if I was back at school. I told Genma-sensei about it it, and he said we should come here.”

The Hokage’s shrewd eyes flicked to Genma, then back to the boy, but the calm smile never left his face. “And what is it, Harry-kun?”

“Well, sir, it started with a nightmare. Which is nothing unusual for me; I’ve been having them most nights for weeks now, but this was different than the regular one.” 

The Hokage’s eyebrows, which had risen when Harry mentioned having a nightmare every night, now furrowed slightly. “How so, Harry-kun?”

“It started the same as ever, with Voldemort—that’s the Dark Wizard, sir—coming back to his body. It happened just a few weeks ago. But then… In this dream, he became two people.” The Hokage’s mouth opened, probably to prompt him to keep going, but Harry did so without being asked. “One of them was still Voldemort, sir, unchanged, just as he was that night. Voldemort is tall and very pale, with no hair and red eyes with vertical pupils like a snake. The other person I saw in the dream was also tall and pale, but he had long black hair and yellow eyes instead. He wore a whitish robe over black and grey, and a kind of purple rope around his waist and behind his back.”

All color had drained from the Hokage’s face, and his pipe, with which he had been absently fiddling, was now trembling from the force his fingers were exerting on it.

“Then…” Harry hesitated, because he hadn’t told this to Genma, but decided that if he was going to treat the Hokage as he would Dumbledore, then he would have to tell all of it. “I didn’t mention this before, sir, because I don’t like to bring it up much, but I have the ability to speak to snakes. Voldemort also has this ability—Professor Dumbledore thinks that he accidentally transferred it to me when he attacked me when I was a baby.” The Hokage nodded for him to continue, but glancing to the side, Harry saw Genma staring at him with his mouth open. He wondered vaguely how the senbon was staying in his sensei’s mouth. “When Voldemort and…this other person split apart in the dream, they spoke to me in snake language, and said they were coming for me.”

“I…see…” the Hokage said at last. He glanced at Genma again, before focusing on Harry. “Thank you for telling me this, Harry-kun. I will make sure Albus-san is aware, and I will relay his thoughts on the matter to you when he replies.”

Recognizing the dismissal, Harry nodded and turned to go. Then, he hesitated. A feeling, almost like a voice whispering in his ear, seemed to be telling him that something else was called for. It was familiar, and after a second, Harry realized it was the same sort of impression he got from the translation charm Dumbledore had placed on the three of them. He examined the impression, trying to determine what he should do. The understanding came to him in a flash, and he turned back to the Hokage’s desk. He bowed from the waist, his chest almost parallel to the floor, and said, “Thank you for your consideration, Hokage-sama.”

Harry straightened up again to see Genma’s eyebrows rising still higher on his forehead, but the Hokage wore a pleased smile. Genma, appearing to get a hold of himself, said, “You can find your way back home, Harry-kun?”

Harry nodded. “Yes, Genma-sensei. And if I do get lost, I’m sure Lizard can direct me.”

Genma grinned in his lazy way, and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow then, deshi.” ‘Apprentice,’ Genma had called him. Harry smiled back, sketched his sensei a shallower bow, and left.

He walked slowly down the stairs, nodded to the two on guard duty—they were only doing their jobs, no matter how rude they seemed—and started back toward the apartment. Even after he turned the corner, Harry felt eyes on him, so he peered up toward the tops of the surrounding buildings. After a moment, a silhouette detached itself from the shadow of a rooftop awning and raised a hand. Harry did the same, then put his hands in his pockets and began walking again. Lizard seemed less uptight than Cat, but Harry knew he couldn’t count this as having spotted the ANBU, since Lizard had willingly revealed himself.

As he turned onto the street where his new apartment was, the now-familiar sensation of being watched increased a little. Chortling to himself about somebody watching him with only one eye, Harry climbed the stairs back to his apartment, undressed, and tumbled into bed. Tomorrow he would need a shower, but the hard day’s work on top of his little sleep the previous night was catching up to him, and he nodded off almost at once.

* * *

Genma waited until the door had closed behind his deshi, and his footsteps had completely died away. Then he waited a while longer to be safe. Then, just to be polite, he waited another few minutes before turning to the Hokage and asking,

“So what in the hell was that about?”

The stiffness left the Hokage’s frame, as Genma reasserted his usual role as the irreverent captain of the guards, even if that wasn’t his position anymore.

“I don’t know, Genma.” There was still tension in the Sandaime’s voice, but he was coping now. “It is alarming enough that someone who may as well be a civilian has such recurring nightmares. I shall have to speak to Albus-san about what Harry-kun has been doing, that he would suffer such stress. We may need to see about having the children speak with a counselor, since they likely would not have had Academy-standard psychological counseling at their own school.

“More immediately, however, I must do as I said and inform Albus-san of what Harry-kun told us tonight. He mentioned in passing that Harry-kun might have interesting dreams, and that if he told us about them, we should take warning.”

“Then…you think we have reason to fear Orochimaru coming for him? Or Vorudemouto coming here?”

“I do not think this…” Sarutobi pronounced the name very carefully, “Voldemort…will come to Konoha. He has no way of knowing that it exists. Orochimaru, however, knows many of our secrets. He promised our destruction before he disappeared. I long thought he might somehow be behind Kyuubi’s attack, but if he was, I think that he would have announced it. He always liked taking credit for his work,” he added bitterly.

“Hokage-sama…” Genma started, but Sarutobi started talking again.

“Still, as I said, Albus-san warned me that Harry might have interesting dreams, and he made a personal request that if such a thing came to pass, he wished Harry-kun to be trained in the mental arts. The wizards, you see, have a mahoujutsu that is very like the Yamanaka Clan’s hiden techniques, used to plunder the mind of an enemy for information. Likewise, they have an art which is used to defend against these invasions.”

Here, the Hokage reached into a drawer of his desk, and drew out a small sealing scroll. “Here, I have a book that Albus-san sent to instruct Harry-kun in this defensive art. It is called…” again, he pronounced the foreign word carefully, “Occlumency. Obviously, we have no wizards here to test any subtle differences between the Yamanaka jutsu and this magical art of…” another careful pronunciation, “Legilimency. However, I have read this book myself, and there appears to be no magical spellcasting required for either. In fact, the description of the invading art is remarkably similar to what Inoichi-san has told me of his jutsu. If the two are at all similar, this…Occlumency…may hold the key to resisting any or all of the Yamanaka’s jutsu.” 

“This mustn’t be allowed to fall into enemy hands,” said Genma. If the village’s enemies could teach their spies not to be detected, Konoha could easily lose its superiority in the political sphere. Having one’s secrets leaked, even by the enemy, did not reflect well on a Hidden Village.

“Clearly not; I am officially classifying this information as an A-class secret,” said the Hokage. “I will need to discuss this with Inoichi, as well as correspond with Albus-san. Please ask Harry-kun to meet with me on Sunday; I should have an answer from both men by then.”

“Hai, Hokage-sama,” said Genma, snapping his usual lazy salute. “And what about Ron-kun and Hermione-chan?”

“Albus-san indicated to me that it would not be necessary for them to learn this mental discipline, but I cannot imagine why,” Sarutobi replied. “It makes little sense not to share a skill such as this amongst allies, in their world where it is already known to exist. As their sensei, I shall leave it to your discretion whether to include them in this instruction, but I personally recommend it.”

“It shall be done, Hokage-sama,” Genma said at once. “There is no such thing as useless knowledge.”

Sarutobi smiled, but his voice remained sharp. “I am glad you agree. Now, I happen to know where you heard that phrase, but Kurenai is not to hear about this from you. This must be Inoichi’s secret to keep or to reveal. You only know because it affects your students.”

“I understand, Hokage-sama,” said Genma, only a trifle petulantly. Really, there was no reason for the Sandaime to be smirking like that. The petulance was barely detectable! Genma scowled for a moment before his mouth curved back into his usual easy smirk. Perhaps there was potential for a new Rule in there, he thought. Don’t try to one-up the Hokage. …Nah, not universal enough.

“So,” he continued after a respectful moment. “As for the rest of the dream, Hokage-sama? What can we do about Orochimaru?”

“Little and less,” the Hokage sighed. “We do not even know where Orochimaru is. Our best intelligence indicates that he was most recently working in the land of Rice Fields. Or the land of Grass. Or the land of Waves. Or the land of Mountains. Or the land of Hot Springs. Or the land of Rivers.” Sarutobi’s grimace matched Genma’s own. That was essentially every neighboring country except for the Great Elemental Nations themselves.

“The only person I would trust to to pick out the truth from these rumors is Jiraiya, and he is currently investigating something else,” Sarutobi finished.

Genma was curious, but knew better than to ask. Hokage-sama would have given him details if the matter concerned him, so plainly it did not. Moreover, if Jiraiya-sama himself was investigating something, it was most likely heavily classified. In other words, Genma did not need-to-know.

Something of this thought process seemed to show on Genma’s face, because Sarutobi said quietly, “I am still hopeful that we can contain the situation which Jiraiya is examining. If it appears to become a direct threat to the village, you will be briefed.”

Genma nodded.

“Do you have anything else to report about your squad, Genma?”

“Not in particular, Hokage-sama. I am beginning to understand them a little, but I will be better able to make a full report on Saturday.”

“That will be fine. If there is nothing else, you are dismissed. Oh, and Genma?”

“Yes, Hokage-sama?”

“Don’t mind Aoba. This behavior of his will pass.”

“Hai, Hokage-sama.”

* * *

Harry woke on his own the next morning with the sun shining on his face, a few minutes before his alarm. Deciding he couldn’t be bothered snoozing for just two minutes, he reached for his glasses, stretched, and went to make some breakfast.

Today was their first full day of ninja training. There was a nervousness in Harry’s stomach that reminded him a little of the morning before a Quidditch match, so he wouldn’t be able to eat much…but he also knew from such experiences that he would regret not having at least some toast, sausage, and orange juice.

Harry figured out the odd sitting-stool shower after a little experimentation, and then spent a completely pointless few minutes in front of the mirror on his wardrobe door, trying to make his hair behave. In the end, he gave it up as a bad job, just as he did every other morning. With the hitai-ite over his scar, his fringe stood up even more wildly than it normally did anyway. He carefully attached the strap he wore for playing Quidditch to the temples of his round glasses, so that they wouldn’t slip off, and slipped his fingers into the steel-backed gloves he had bought yesterday. They fit snugly, but did not restrict his hands or fingers. Aside from the steel plates, they were very like the gloves that some Quidditch players wore, though he had never favored gloves personally, preferring to rely on his own hands to catch the tiny, walnut-sized Golden Snitch.

He was dressed and ready by six-thirty, and he stepped out into the hallway to find Hermione just locking her door. They looked at each other, sighed, and both went to pound on Ron’s door. To their surprise, though, he opened it promptly, a piece of toast hanging from his mouth, but otherwise fully dressed and ready to go. The only part of his uniform that he had dispensed with was the bandanna, since there was no need to cover his hair inside the village.

They set off for training ground seventeen, and arrived just before the appointed time. Genma was nowhere to be seen, but as they opened the gate and stepped inside, there was a sudden gust of wind. The wind swirled up dust and leaves, and they watched the spot expectantly, waiting for Genma to appear as Cat had done yesterday. The wind died, the leaves fluttered back to the ground, but there was nobody there.

“Whatcha looking at?” said a voice behind them. They all whirled around. Genma was leaning against the gate, his hands in his pockets, quite at his ease. He smirked at them lazily, and intoned, “Genma’s Rule Number Six: Always be aware of your surroundings.”

He straightened up and rolled his shoulders. “I’m glad you all made it in good time.” He walked past them, toward the wall where they had been sitting yesterday. “Most of the other sensei had their squads meet them at dawn,” he said over his shoulder. “You can thank me now for telling you to come at seven.”

They all smiled as Genma turned back around. “Spread out by about a meter,” he ordered, “and follow my lead. We’ll need to warm up before we do anything else.”

Genma led them through a series of stretches, from basic toe-touches up to poses that Harry thought might be some kind of yoga. Hermione was the most flexible of the three of them, but Genma outstripped them all by a long shot. None of the Hogwarts students could quite reach their toes with their legs straight, but Genma put his whole hands flat on the ground for the full ten-count. He then pushed off with his hands and bent over in the other direction, placing his palms flat below his shoulders so he was bent backwards instead, arching his back. All of them fell over when they tried to imitate him, but he just told them encouragingly to lift themselves into the position from the ground until they got good enough to transition.

They concluded with some push-ups, which Hermione struggled with while Genma did them from a handstand—“It’s harder when you do it slowly, Hermione-chan!”—and another ten laps around the inside of the gate. Genma joined them, though he outstripped them immediately and did at least sixty circuits of the area by the time they had finished their ten—“Steady pace; steady pace! We’ll work on speed another day, deshi!”

When they had finished, all of them were panting and drenched in sweat, so Genma handed around canteens. He refused to let them sit, however—“You just got warmed up; I’m not letting you cool back down!” While they drank, he explained his basic training plan. They would arrive at the training ground at seven and warm up, then start learning martial arts. After lunch, they would focus on chakra exercises, and in the evenings Genma would lecture them on topics varying from history to geography to tactics. Their weekends would be their own, for relaxing and socializing with their fellow genin…though he made it clear he still expected them to stretch mornings and evenings, and not slack off so much that they were soft when the weekend ended.

“What day is it today, Genma-sensei?” Ron asked.

Genma smirked, his senbon glinting in the sunlight. “Monday.” They all groaned.

After they had all rehydrated to his satisfaction, Genma began leading them through the most basic taijutsu kata. The positions were awkward at first, and Genma had to make many small corrections to the angles of their elbows or the positions of their feet. Then they had to assume each kata perfectly several times in a row before he was satisfied that it was firmly in their muscle memory. 

The kata came first, he told them, and it was all they would be working on for a while—the most exciting thing they would be doing with their taijutsu for some time would be learning to transition smoothly from one kata to another. Only once they had all the basics perfected would they start sparring. 

After lunch, they started the leaf-concentration practice again, but all of them still found their leaves fluttering to the ground whenever they let go. For encouragement, and to show them that it could be done, Genma began demonstrating the next chakra exercise they would learn, floating a leaf above their hands. 

His “encouragement” quickly started grating when he walked by, whistling, with three leaves stuck to his hitae-ite, and a leaf floating six inches above each hand, but when Ron grumbled that he was showing off, Genma just grinned at him. “Genma’s Rule Number Twenty-Three and One-Third: If you’ve got it, flaunt it.” 

They finished at the training ground with several more laps and stretches, though at a slower pace than the morning, to cool off. Genma took them to dinner again, though at a simple tea shop tonight. When they sat down, he pulled out three small cloth bags and handed one to each of them.

“As Konoha’s honoured guests, you have each been granted a stipend by the Hokage for the duration of your stay, or until you are able to begin taking missions,” he explained. “Whichever comes first.” 

They ate a simple meal of rice and chicken with curry, while Genma discoursed on the history of the Elemental Nations, and the founding of the Hidden Villages as a way to end the constant warfare of the time.

All of them asked him a few questions, and then Genma began to quiz them not only on the history lecture but on the nature of chakra and also on their hand seals. They all did well, and Genma bought them each a chocolate bar before sending them home.

They all tumbled into their beds that night and were asleep almost at once. Harry noted vaguely that they were apparently now expected to consistently work fourteen-hour days. His last thought before sleep claimed him was a hope that he would be too exhausted to have his usual nightmare.

* * *

Their schedule didn’t vary much, but even over the course of the first week, Genma could tell that all of them were improving. Each toe-touch was a little bit closer to living up to its name; each push-up lap around the training ground became a little easier; each taijutsu kata flowed a little more smoothly into the next. On Thursday, Hermione finally managed to successfully stick her leaf to her forehead with chakra, and on Friday Harry and Ron managed as well. 

Now that all of them could do it, Genma told them that their work for the rest of the day was to keep the leaf stuck to their foreheads for as long as possible, including during his dinner lecture. Starting the following week, they would do the exercise during their taijutsu training as well, until moulding their chakra became completely second nature. 

That evening’s lecture was on the manipulation of chakra at a baser level.

“There are two kinds of chakra transformation,” Genma told them, while they sweated and tried to keep the leaves on their foreheads and also concentrate on what he was saying. They all knew he would quiz them later. “All chakra transformation is based on moulding; moulding in numerous and complex ways. The purpose of hand seals is to mould chakra in specific ways; a given combination of seals reliably creates the same jutsu each time because the chakra is moulded in roughly the same way each time. Understand?”

They all nodded. Genma had covered this before, of course, but it appeared they remembered it. Good. He nodded approvingly, then continued.

“The two kinds of transformation are nature transformation and shape transformation. Shape transformation means moulding in such a way as to cause the chakra to physically move in real space. This can mean spinning, compressing, or forming strings, for instance. This was a specialty of the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato. He was so talented at controlling the shape of chakra that he invented a jutsu requiring no hand signs, only good control.

“Nature transformation means moulding chakra so as to fundamentally change it. It will no longer be pure energy; it will be forced into the form of one of the five basic elements—Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Lightning. From these, we derive the five basic categories of nature-transformation ninjutsu: Doton, Suiton, Katon, Fuuton, and Raiton.” Their translation spell indicated the ‘style’ or ‘release’ of each element in the same order. Ron’s leaf fell off his forehead, and Genma paused until he stuck it back again.

“Each element overpowers the one after it, and is itself overpowered by the one which precedes it,” Genma continued. “Water beats fire, fire beats wind, and so on. Some of the others also interact in different ways, without one beating the other, like lightning and water.

“Each person generally has a strong affinity for one particular type of nature transformation—one element that they generally favor. They will always find it easier to learn jutsu of that nature, and generally they will perform those jutsu with more power. These affinities seem to be influenced by both genetics and temperament—they typically do run in families, but it’s not unusual for a family’s black sheep to find that his chakra affinity differs from the rest of his clan’s.

“Here in Konoha, the most common affinity is fire. The Uchiha clan and the Sarutobi clan both predominantly produce fire-users; the entire country is called the Land of Fire for good reason.”

Hermione raised a hand. “What else does affinity affect, Genma-sensei?”

Genma nodded to acknowledge the question. “One thing that it seems to directly affect is, in addition to making it easier to learn jutsu of the corresponding element, it is usually more difficult to learn jutsu of the element which your affinity is naturally weak to. Those same katon-users often have difficulty using suiton, and even when they succeed, the water technique is often noticeably weaker. Less commonly, they may also have difficulties with the element which their affinity naturally overpowers, simply because it will not act the same way for them. The katon user in this case sometimes finds that any fuuton techniques he or she learns behave in an almost fickle manner, with inconsistent power.

“Now, it is of course quite possible to use jutsu of an element with which you do not have an affinity—in fact it is a great strength to be able to surprise those who think they know you, and adds a measure of unpredictability. If most chunin are at least on their way to being proficient with their most-affine element, it is almost unheard of for a ninja to be promoted to jonin before completely mastering at least two. Powerful ninja such as Hokage-sama are even able to use all five nature transformations with essentially equal power.” Their jaws all dropped at this, and Genma smirked. “Not for nothing is Hokage-sama called shinobi no kami.” 

‘A god of ninja’, rendered the charm. They all stared. The kindly, tiny old man who had brought them here was so powerful he was thought of as being like a god? Of course, among wizards, age and power were rarely correlated—Professor Dumbledore himself was living proof that an old man could be a powerful wizard—but somehow it had seemed like it would be different in Konoha.

Genma let them turn the new information over for a moment, before he grinned and added, “…others, however, just call him Saru.” ‘Monkey’, they understood. All three of them started to giggle. Ron’s and Harry’s leaves fell, and they both scrambled to stick them back, still chortling.

“Another, more subtle way that affinity indirectly affects shinobi is in their personal preferences. In my experience, many katon users are pyromaniacs to some degree; they will like to light candles and incense, or insist on a large bonfire when it is cold. Doton users often like to get their hands dirty and feel the earth between their fingers or toes, and it’s not uncommon to find Hatake Kakashi—who is incidentally a raiton user—sitting outside in a thunderstorm, watching the clouds flash.”

“How do you find out what your affinity is, sensei?” Ron asked.

“I was wondering when you were going to ask,” Genma replied. He reached into his hip pouch and pulled out a small wooden box. “Here in Konoha, there is a special type of tree which is grown and fed only with chakra. This makes the plant itself very attuned to chakra, and we found that when we made paper from such a tree, the paper could tell us what type of chakra a person who touched it had an affinity for.”

Genma carefully pulled on a pair of gloves, paused for a moment to fully suppress his own chakra, then took from the box four small squares of paper. He set one in front of each of them, then returned box and gloves to his pouch.

“Depending on which type of chakra a given person identifies with most closely—that is, which type they have an affinity for—the paper will react in different ways. For instance,” he consciously stopped suppressing his chakra, and presented to them a square of paper which was suddenly a little transparent and sticking to his fingers.

“It’s damp; your affinity is for water, right sensei?” said Hermione excitedly.

Genma smiled. “Just so. I’ve also mastered both earth and fire, just to give you another example of how determination can overcome lack of affinity…although it helped that my own sensei had a double-affinity for fire and earth.”

“A double-affinity?” Harry asked.

“The most common reason for a shinobi to have a natural double-affinity is if they possess an advanced-nature kekkei genkai,” Genma explained. All of them remembered from a previous lecture that kekkei genkai was the term for a usually-hereditary—though not always so—individual technique. 

“Actually, the Academy-correct term is an elementally-recomposed nature type. In this case, he possessed the ability to use the advanced nature of magma style, which combines fire and earth to form youton. Due to his inborn ability to use youton, he found that he was also almost preternaturally skilled with katon and doton.”

“Who was your sensei, Genma-sensei?” Harry pressed.

Genma’s senbon paused for a moment as he considered his student. “His name is Zankyou Uragiri,” he said at last. “Ironic, considering the depth of his loyalty to Konoha.” They all looked confused for a moment, before they seemed to get the pun. Genma supposed it was the work of the special mahoujutsu that Hokage-sama had mentioned to him, which allowed the children to understand the language spoken in the Elemental Nations, and allowed the locals to understand them in return. The joke, of course, was that Uragiri-sensei’s name could be written with the kanji for ‘betrayal’. Genma took another moment to smirk before he continued.

“Sensei was born in the land of Water, but he immigrated to the land of Fire as a young child to avoid the First Cleansing, which inspired the modern Purge.” All three children shivered. Genma was not surprised—he had covered the Purge of Water country just last night in their history lesson. The genocide of entire clans due to fear of their kekkei genkai did not paint an attractive picture of Konoha’s neighbor to the East, and Kirigakure’s reputation as the Bloody Mist did not help matters. 

“Anyway,” Genma continued, “Uragiri-sensei came to Fire country and lived in the woods near Konoha. He would sneak into the village to steal food and spy on the Academy classes. He taught himself to read and write and slowly learned how to be a shinobi. Once he was confident he had learned enough, he broke into the Academy proper, late one night, and stole a copy of the written exam. The next day, he sneaked into the Hokage’s office and presented himself to the Sandaime. He handed in the completed exam and demonstrated the required jutsu. Hokage-sama was impressed, and declared him a genin of Konoha. Sensei was only six years old.”

“What?” they all gasped.

Genma shrugged. “It’s impressive, but not unheard of. The traitor Uchiha Itachi graduated the Academy at seven. Densetsu no Sannin all graduated together at six, just a year or two before sensei did. Hatake Kakashi actually graduated at just five.”

“What about you, sensei?” Hermione asked in a breathless voice.

“Oh, I wasn’t any kind of prodigy like that; I was ten. If anything, it was Gai who was the prodigy of our team—he did manage to pass at seven, and that was after he failed the entrance exam the year before. Ebisu never had trouble with any tests, but he chose to delay his graduation in order to learn as much as he could from the Academy. I think he knew, even then, that his passion lay in teaching. As for me, I passed the exam when doing so made sense.” He grinned at them, and added, “Meaning when it was less troublesome than repeating the year again if you’ll forgive me sounding like a Nara for the phrase.”

Genma glanced out the window at the darkening sky. “It’s getting late, kids, and I think you’d all like to know what these—” he indicated the chakra papers still sitting in front of them, “—have to say about you. This test isn’t usually given to students at your level, but you’re getting a crash-course anyway, so I say, go ahead.”

His three students looked at each other, leaves still stuck comically to their foreheads, and then reached out as one to pick up the chakra papers. Nothing happened for a long moment, as Genma waited for their far-less-practiced and thus less-controlled chakra to saturate and affect the special paper.

Then all three of them gasped. Harry’s paper had crinkled up around his fingers, Ron’s had torn itself neatly in half, and Hermione’s crumbled into dust. She stared at the pile of dirt in her palm, then raised her eyes to Genma and asked, “Earth?”

Genma gave them all a broad smile. He nodded, and said, “Very good. Yes, Earth for you, Hermione-chan; Wind for Ron-kun; Lightning for Harry-kun.

“This tells us several things. For one thing, Ron-kun would most likely win a battle royale between the three of you.” To his surprise, Harry and Hermione nodded without hesitation. Ron, however, looked baffled by both his statement and their reactions. Really, his face was priceless.

“Furthermore, we learn exactly what training style will likely suit each of you. To begin with, aside from our Academy standard hand-to-hand, you will all end up learning different styles of taijutsu, the better to complement your best affinity. Harry-kun, raiton lends itself to blindingly-fast and direct attacks. Ron-kun, your fuuton affinity will lend itself to sidesteps and assaults from every angle, just as the wind blows; you will also likely find that you do well with kenjutsu and bukijutsu, as a wind affinity does wonders with bladed weapons. Hermione-chan, most doton users favor hard, direct styles, but knowing you, I think you would like the flexibility of a style that blends both hard and soft. 

“Gai will be the best to instruct you in of these, as he has mastered them all. You may also receive separate instruction in some finer points from other sensei—at least, assuming I can get them to cooperate. If not, you may need to seek assistance from your peers, who I think would be likely to assist you even if their own instructors are not.

“Now, this information doesn’t need to be trumpeted,” Genma concluded, looking at all of them with a stern expression. “When you start to train in ninjutsu, you’re all going to be learning some basic jutsu of every type. There is no need to parade it in front of your peers, who likely won’t discover their own affinities with this test until they are already chunin. I may not personally agree with the reason for such information being commonly withheld, but it is not my place—or yours!—to interfere with how other sensei choose to teach. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Genma-sensei,” they chorused.

Genma smiled again and waved them off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of things happened while I was writing this—basically, this whole chapter and the next kinda got away from me. A lot of characters kinda imposed their own wills on the situations I came up with and made this chapter their own, to such an extent that it ended up getting extended into the next chapter as well, rather than having me nudge them into events. I don't know how much sense that makes to the average person, but I personally consider it a good sign.
> 
> I have no idea why Aoba is being an asshole—he never gave me that impression in canon. Maybe he's just trying to get used to the idea that he's the head of the guard platoon now, and isn't sure how to handle the authority?
> 
> I couldn't resist the idea of Genma having a list of rules that he dribbles out when they're relevant, all out-of-order. It's just a really fun way to give lessons, and he seems very playful when there aren't lives on the line. Yes, this is way earlier than most of the canon _Naruto_ characters find out their elemental affinities, but as Genma points out, he's giving the Hogwarts Three a shinobi crash course, trying to pack into a few weeks or months all the things that they normally would have been learning for years. It makes more sense to teach them things in a different order. He also strikes me as a very practical instructor—he's going to make sure they know what they're most capable of and give them the tools to take advantage of it. I've had everybody's affinity settled in my head for a while, including Genma's, so none of this is rushed.
> 
> Another new thing was the character of Zankyō Uragiri, who I invented out of whole cloth to be Genma's sensei and mentor. (Brownie points to whoever figures out where his name came from, ha!) I don't know if he'll actually appear in the story, but he is still alive and out wandering around, not unlike Jiraiya. He's about half a step below the level of the Sannin, but you don't get to be that old in the shinobi world without being formidable.


	6. ...Who We Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Trio splits up to explore the village individually on their first day off, each making some new friends along the way.

Saturday dawned bright and clear, and Harry rolled over to bury his face in his pillow, hiding from the sunlight for another precious hour or two. He, Ron, and Hermione had all reset their alarms last night to give them a bit of a lie-in. The week’s new habits died hard, though, as he began to wake up even without the alarm, and found his hand automatically reaching for his glasses. Grumbling to himself, he put them on and sat up in bed. He glanced at the clock, and saw that he actually had slept in a little compared to the usual, and reasoned that he didn’t necessarily have to sleep in order to relax. With that decided, he got up and started his morning stretches. 

When he had finished, he crossed the room to the kitchenette and started making himself breakfast. Some days, he really missed the house elves’ cooking at Hogwarts, or better yet, Mrs. Weasley’s at the Burrow. Still, Harry wasn’t too bad a cook, if he did say so himself. Doing all the cooking for the Dursleys since the day he was judged tall enough to reach the range by himself with a stool had certainly taught him his way around the kitchen.

After breakfast, he pulled on some of the civilian clothes he had bought, simple black pants and a white shirt bearing the traditional red spiral. Harry wasn’t sure what it was supposed to represent, but he got an impression from Genma that it was somehow significant to Naruto. Perhaps he could ask Naruto about it if he saw him today.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had agreed to split up for the day, so that they could each learn as much as they could about the village and its inhabitants. They would meet up tomorrow for lunch to pool their knowledge. The other two had made obligations to Team 10, but Harry decided to begin by walking around Konoha’s perimeter. He would stay inside the village’s walls, and walk the rough circle of road that tended to separate the village itself from the many shinobi’s training grounds that littered the outer ring. 

Almost all of these other training grounds were larger than training ground seventeen, where they trained with Genma. Some were open fields, some were hilly or sandy or full of stones that were plainly meant to imitate scree that might be found in mountainous terrain. Several of them contained stands of trees of various densities. One looked so foreboding that Harry didn’t even approach the gate. Other training grounds were littered with bullseyes for target practice or with wooden dummies for taijutsu training. 

Harry paused near one of these, which was to be occupied despite it being a Saturday morning. Two people were practicing a taijutsu form that looked pretty different from the ones Genma was teaching them. At first glance, Harry pegged the pair for a father and son, for they looked very similar—they were dressed in identical bright-green jumpsuits with orange leg-warmers, and even wore the same bowl-cut. From their postures, however, Harry came to the conclusion that they must be sensei and deshi, no matter how similar they looked. They were superficially alike, but their faces had completely different structures, for one thing.

They were also very loud.

“Gai-sensei; I think I have it!” shouted the younger one, at such a volume that Harry winced even from as far away as he was.

“Yes indeed, Lee!” roared the teacher with equal exuberance. “Your fiery youthful passion and determination has brought you another step closer to mastery of our gouken form!”

“Yosh! Gai-sensei!”

“Lee!”

“Gai-sensei!”

“Lee!”

Harry beat a hasty retreat as he felt a headache coming on, but it faded as he continued on his way. Not much farther down the road, he saw a dirt path that led through a thin stand of trees. Following it, Harry found himself standing outside a short-walled compound. There was a sign over the entryway bearing a large, stylized red-and-white fan. 

Harry hesitated. Genma had taught them about the history of Konoha on Tuesday, so he knew the story of the Uchiha clan’s founding of the village along with the Senju clan…and the story of the Uchiha Massacre just five years ago. The compound was dead quiet. Harry’s curiosity was piqued, and the instincts Harry thought he must have inherited from his father and his prankster friends—the Hogwarts Marauders—came into play. Harry slipped through the gate and walked slowly down the main street, sticking to the middle, looking around.

In all honesty, he thought, there wasn’t much to see. It looked basically like any other part of the village, just walled-off and with the Uchiwa fan painted everywhere. He paused at the first crossroads, then followed the left path. He thought he saw a lake, and wanted a closer look. If there wasn’t anything interesting, he’d retrace his steps, leave, and continue his exploration of the rest of the village.

The lake had a short dock built out on it, which Harry stood on as he looked out over the water. The puffy clouds in the sky were reflected in the clear lake water, and a light breeze ruffled his hair. All in all, the little body of water afforded a peaceful feeling that the great black lake at Hogwarts never managed.

The sense of peace was shattered as the hairs on Harry’s neck stood up. He heard a footstep behind him, but before he could turn around, a voice called out, “What are you doing here?” 

The voice was harsh, surly, and demanding, but sounded like it belonged to someone young. Harry looked back and saw the black-haired boy from Iruka’s class, Uchiha Sasuke. He was glaring at Harry, who wasn’t sure what he had done wrong. Sure, this part of the village was pretty empty after the Incident that Genma had told them about, but it wasn’t as if he was trespassing on private property. At least, he didn’t think he was.

“Looking at the clouds reflected in the lake,” Harry answered truthfully.

The boy scowled. “Why come to this place at all? This is my clan’s compound.”

“I was just looking around town,” Harry replied with a shrug. “I liked the look of this lake. It’s pretty here.”

The boy blinked at this, as if surprised that Harry wasn’t intimidated by his haughty demeanor. Harry snorted internally. If he could put up with Draco Malfoy’s aristocratic posturing and Viktor Krum’s surly grunting, he wasn’t about to be impressed by some little twelve-year-old trying to be a mixture of both. Sasuke watched Harry for another moment. Then, apparently deciding that Harry didn’t constitute a threat, walked out onto the dock beside him.

The silence between them stretched a little, but Harry decided not to break it. Genma-sensei had told them that they should get to know the other genin, and Harry could tell that—like with Viktor Krum this past year—he would find out more if he let the other begin the conversation without prompting.

“My father brought me here to teach me our clan’s jutsu,” Sasuke said suddenly.

Harry smiled. Looked like all Sasuke needed was someone to listen. “What jutsu?” he asked.

In response, Sasuke’s hands flashed through a series of seals too fast for Harry to follow. The last one was Tiger, he saw, as Sasuke took a deep breath. Sasuke then raised his right hand to his mouth with his first two fingers curled in front of his upper lip. He blew out through pursed lips, and a great ball of flame erupted from his mouth. The fireball was larger in diameter than Harry was tall, and he didn’t have to fake his appreciation.

“That’s really impressive,” he said, still smiling. “What’s it called?” 

Sasuke glanced at him, then said quietly, “Goukakyuu no jutsu.” Harry turned this over in his mind, then nodded as the translation charm rendered the foreign name into ‘Grand Fireball’.

Harry sat down on the edge of the dock with his feet over the edge, just above the surface of the water. He thought of patting the place beside him to indicate Sasuke should sit down as well, but decided against it. Sasuke would have to act, as well as talk, at his own pace. for the moment, though, it would be appropriate for Harry to speak up.

“I don’t know any jutsu yet. Genma-sensei has us working on chakra control right now, since we’ve never used it before.” He picked up a leaf that was sitting on the dock, and concentrated enough to briefly stick it to his forehead with chakra. It seemed to come easier each time he did it. With another smile, he released his chakra, pursed his lips, and blew the leaf away when it fell from his forehead. It landed on the water and floated there, tiny ripples expanding and disappearing.

Sasuke was quiet for a moment. Then, he sat down beside Harry, kicking his feet a little where they dangled over the lake. “Why didn’t you learn how to use chakra before now?” he asked. His tone hovered between rude and genuinely curious. Harry decided, for the moment, to let this go.

“Where I came from, England, we don’t have shinobi, but we do have wizards. We don’t learn ninjutsu, we learn magic,” he said after a while. It was the simplest explanation he could come up with.

“Magic?” Sasuke repeated.

Harry nodded. “I was learning to use this.” He pulled his wand out briefly for the other boy to see, then put it away again into his belt. “You probably won’t believe me though, since I can’t show you any magic to prove it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s against our laws to use magic outside of school, except in life-threatening circumstances. I already got a warning from the Ministry once for using magic at home, even though it wasn’t really me. They use a certain spell that just detects if magic has been done, not who did it. I also promised Professor Dumbledore that I wouldn’t use magic while I was here, under the same conditions.”

“Who is that?” Sasuke asked.

“The Head of our school. He’s a lot like Hokage-sama. He was the one who introduced us to the Hokage, actually, and arranged for us to come here,” said Harry.

“And why did you come here?” Finally, they seemed to have gotten around to the question that Sasuke wanted to ask. Harry saw the boy sneaking sidelong glances at him.

Harry looked down at the water. “Because there’s a war starting, back in England, and the person in charge of the other side wants to kill me. He wants to take over the world and kill anyone who can’t do magic, anyone who he says shouldn’t be allowed to do magic anyway, anyone who opposes him…pretty much anyone he wants.” Harry paused, then added softly, “He also killed my parents, and he’s been trying to kill me since I was a year old.” He lifted his hitai-ite briefly to let Sasuke see the lightning bolt scar on his forehead.

Sasuke was looking directly at him now. “Why?”

Harry shrugged again. “I’ve been asking that question since I was eleven. Professor Dumbledore just says he’ll tell me ‘when I’m ready’. I’m beginning to think that he’s never going to consider me ready.”

Sasuke scowled a moment, then said, “Do you know about the…Incident?” He ground the word out from between clenched teeth, and the wood of the dock under his fingers groaned and gave way slightly.

“Yes,” Harry murmured. A simple acknowledgement was best—he knew that if he appeared to offer pity Sasuke would be offended, and he didn’t want the boy to go. Almost in spite of himself, and certainly in spite of the other’s haughty attitude, Harry found that he liked the dark-eyed boy.

Of course, he might have worried more if Sasuke had not seemed so caught up in his own dark thoughts. “Then you understand. I have to avenge my clan,” he said, finally. “I have to get strong enough to kill him. He told me we had to have the same eyes…”

“Er, what do you mean, ‘the same eyes’?” Harry asked cautiously. 

Sasuke stiffened, but to Harry’s surprise, he answered, “My clan is known for it’s kekkei genkai: the Sharingan.” 

Harry’s translation charm gave a jumbled impression of ‘Copy Wheel Eye’, so Harry thought it must be something to do with copying the enemy—perhaps you could use it to copy their fighting style, or even their jutsu?

Sasuke continued without pausing, “I still haven’t awakened my sharingan. Some clan members take years or decades to activate the sharingan; some never wake it at all. But he…his sharingan was a level above that. I don’t even know what technique he used on me. I was too weak to stop him; too weak to even make a difference. He told me I was too weak to even be worth killing!” His voice cracked at the end. He slammed a fist into the wood of the dock beside him, and silence fell between them for a while.

“So you live here alone?” Harry asked, hoping that it was enough of a change of subject.

“…Yes. Other than him, I am the last Uchiha,” he said. Then his scowl darkened. “No, he betrayed our name. I am the last.”

Harry gave another shrug. “There’s nobody else named Potter in the wizarding world, either. There might be some muggles with that last name, but they’re not related to me.” Sasuke looked at him, puzzled, and Harry elaborated, “Muggle is our word for civilians. People who can’t do magic. Most of the people in England—most of the outside world, actually—can’t use magic at all. That’s why it’s illegal to use magic outside school; magic has to remain secret.”

Sasuke nodded like he understood. Perhaps he did, Harry thought. After all, while ninjas did not conceal their existence from civilians as a whole, here, ninjas must be no stranger to defending secrets.

After he thought about it some, he realized he probably knew exactly why Sasuke still lived alone in his family’s old compound. 

“Sometimes it feels like I don’t have any privacy,” Harry told Sasuke. “When we’re at school we sleep in dorms, and people often stare and whisper to each other, because of my scar.” The other boy’s eyebrows were nearly in his hair. “Before that, I was brought up by my aunt and uncle until I was eleven. They didn’t like me; I had to do all the chores and they made me sleep in a cupboard under the stairs.”

“But…they were your family!” Sasuke sounded like he couldn’t fathom it. Harry guessed that in his mind, it was more that betrayal of family was so unconscionable that he couldn’t believe it had happened to both of them, even if it was in different ways.

“I’ve never seen my parents’ house. I don’t even know the village where we lived,” he confided to the younger boy. He wondered as he did so if anybody else knew he had never known those basic things. Dumbledore must have known, of course; it must have been his doing, so maybe there was a reason for it? But did his godfather Sirius, his father’s best friend, know that his godson had never seen where his parents lived? Did their old friend and fellow Marauder, Remus, know?

“Are you staying here in Konoha?” Sasuke asked, breaking Harry’s train of thought.

“I don’t know how long we’re staying here. The next school year starts in a few months, but everything might change now that Voldemort—that’s the Dark Wizard who’s after me—is back. We had to kind of evacuate here in a hurry to escape some meddling politicians.” Harry scowled at the memory of Cornelius Fudge standing in the Hospital Wing, denying Voldemort’s return to Harry and Dumbledore both. “If things go as badly as I think they might, Professor Dumbledore might want us to stay here and keep training.”

“Do you think we could train together?” Sasuke asked in a rush.

“I’d like that,” said Harry, smiling, “but I’m way behind you right now. I told you, back home we don’t have shinobi. I’ve only had one week of training, and it sounds like you’ve been training most of your life.” Sasuke nodded, staring fixedly at the water, not meeting Harry’s eye. Harry went on, “Maybe in a little while, if I can get to a point where I won’t totally embarrass myself; maybe we can train together then?” He made it a request on his part, and Sasuke nodded.

“Do you have training every day, Sasuke?” Harry prodded.

Sasuke shook his head. “We do missions twice a week. I thought we’d be training more, and doing missions more often, but our sensei is lazy and always late. I don’t know why I had to get stuck with such a useless sensei.”

“Who is your sensei, Sasuke-san?” Harry asked, testing out the form of address. It was a little personal, since he used the boy’s given name, but the suffix was polite enough to indicate that Harry didn’t intend to be presumptuous.

“Hatake Kakashi,” Sasuke spat.

Harry nodded. “I guess it makes sense that Hokage-sama would have you trained by the only other person in the village with a sharingan.”

Sasuke’s head whipped around. “What do you mean, a sharingan?” he demanded.

Harry looked back at him in surprise. Genma-sensei had told them a little about each of the other jonin in the village, and he had let them look through what he called a “Bingo Book”, though he still had to translate for them. He said this book had been published in Iwagakure, and he had confiscated it during a mission shortly before their arrival. The Iwa Bingo Book contained entries on several Konoha shinobi, and what was known by the enemy about their capabilities. 

By far the longest and most-impressive had belonged to Hatake Kakashi, who the book stated was one of the strongest and most dangerous shinobi still on active duty in Konoha, due in no small part to the Sharingan eye that he kept hidden under his hitai-ite.

Harry explained this to Sasuke, who shook his head in apparent denial. “But you can’t have just one sharingan. And with his colouration, he could never be Uchiha.”

“Genma-sensei said Kakashi-san once told him he keeps it covered because he can’t turn it off. Obviously he wasn’t born with it, but he lost his left eye on a mission; the sharingan he has now once belonged to one of his teammates, who asked Kakashi-san to take his eye on his deathbed,” Harry explained. “Genma-sensei said their third teammate was talented with…what was it? The healing hands…shousen no jutsu, I think? So she was able to to stabilize them both while making the transplant. According to Genma-sensei, it was a defining moment for Kakashi-san. Before this happened he was very uptight about following the rules and being punctual; a point of contention with his Uchiha teammate, who said that looking after one’s comrades was more important than just following rules.”

“And now…” Sasuke looked stunned, but Harry could tell he had put it together. “Now…that’s all Kakashi-sensei ever talks about. ‘Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.’”

“He’s known and feared throughout the elemental nations as the Copy Ninja, who knows a thousand jutsu and always chooses exactly the right one for the situation,” said Harry, rather enjoying the story. As Genma pointed out, even if he had copied a thousand jutsu, Kakashi was much more likely to just stick to the ones he knew best…but it suited him to have the enemy think he was even more powerful than he was. “So is it really any surprise that he was chosen as your jonin-sensei?”

“Hmph. He’s still late all the time,” Sasuke grumbled.

Harry grinned, but at the same time, he noticed that the by-now familiar prickling on the back of his neck had increased. Were they being watched by more people? When had that happened? And why?

From the way the feeling of eyes on him never went away fully except when he was in his apartment, Harry knew that they were assigned to keep an eye on him. Even though Genma said the ANBU were assigned to look after all three of them, it was clear that if they split up, as they had done today, the ANBU on duty would stay with Harry. But then why were there suddenly more people watching?

He looked around, and saw a nearby bush rustle…in three different places.

“I think we’re being watched,” he said casually to Sasuke. “Other than by the ANBU that’s assigned to guard me, I mean.”

“There’s ANBU guarding you?” Sasuke asked. He made no effort to hide his surprise; a full-time ANBU escort would be usual for foreign dignitaries, not genin-in-training.

“Yeah, two,” said Harry. “I think they split day and night shifts. Genma-sensei introduced us to the daytime one. Her name is Cat. But anyway, there’s someone else watching us now. Several someones.”

“Hmph. Probably just some fangirls,” said Sasuke dismissively.

“Does that…happen often?” said Harry uncertainly.

“They don’t usually come into the compound,” Sasuke replied. “They won’t bother us, though. They’re all too shy to come near me.” He glanced at Harry, and gave a tiny smile. “I give them all the cold shoulder, after all, so they just stay at a distance and moon over how wonderful they think I am. Most of them have never even met me.”

“Do you ever talk to any of them?” Harry asked. He was thinking of Ginny, who had showed fangirl-ish tendencies toward him for a year or two, before seeming to calm down and learn to be more herself around him. Harry was grateful; staying at the Burrow had been awkward at times when Ginny couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as him.

“Not really. Except for Sakura; she’s on my squad. I still ignore her when she’s obnoxious, though. Which is more often than not. Still, she’s less annoying than Naruto-dobe.”

Sasuke’s chosen suffix did not translate smoothly. Harry got a jumble of relatively-rude impressions, before the charm seemed to settle on an implication of ‘bad at everything; dead-last’. Oddly, though, there was no venom in Sasuke’s tone. Harry had a feeling that if he asked Naruto about Sasuke, he’d get a similar reaction. Pondering it, Harry could only conclude that while Sasuke was annoyed by Naruto, their bickering was friendly rather than scathing.

Sasuke interrupted Harry’s chain of thought again, this time by saying, “There’s a new one. I recognized Sakura, and Yamanaka Ino—they’re two of the most persistent fangirls—but there’s a third girl with curly brown hair.”

“Really?” Harry said. He was a little surprised that Hermione was there.

“She was probably hanging out with them and got dragged along. She doesn’t seem to be as focused on me as the other two. I hope she doesn’t end up like the others. She seemed different, when I saw you three at the Academy,” Sasuke sighed, then gave Harry a sidelong glance. “Maybe she’s not here to look at me, though…”

Harry, who had been taking a drink from his canteen, spat out his mouthful of water. It splashed into the lake as he started choking. Sasuke thumped him on the back, and almost sent him tumbling into the lake himself—he was strong for a kid. Eyes streaming, Harry wiped his mouth and shook his head.

“No, I think you’re right,” he gasped. “She was probably just dragged along for the ride when they told her about the boy they both had a crush on.”

Sasuke started chuckling, and Harry joined in once he could breathe properly. They sat there on the edge of the dock, laughing quietly, for a long while.

* * *

Hermione had no idea how she let herself get dragged off to a new part of town, forced into hiding in a bush, spying on one of her best friends and a boy she didn’t even know.

Her day had started normally enough. She woke up, did her morning stretches and practiced her hand seals, making sure she had them perfectly correct. It was important that she have them perfectly correct, and committed to muscle memory so that she would never hesitate to do them correctly under pressure. It was just the same as with wand movements, and she was always good at those.

She ate a light breakfast, and slipped out of the apartment as she heard Harry clattering around next door. There was no sound from Ron’s apartment; he was probably still asleep. It was impressive enough that he didn’t oversleep during the week, she supposed there was no use hoping he wouldn’t sleep in on weekends.

It was still a bit early to make her promised visit to the Yamanaka flower shop, so Hermione wandered through the neighborhood for a while. She got a bit lost due to the confusing street layouts, and abruptly found herself standing beside a sign that she was pretty sure read ‘Training Ground Three’. The translation charm still wasn’t advanced enough to let them read properly, but she did get impressions from the complicated symbols that were used for writing here, and she was starting to recognize certain of the symbols.

She looked around the training ground. There was a small clearing beside a creek, with three large posts set in the ground. Opposite the posts, about a hundred meters away, was a large stone that seemed to be intricately carved. She approached it, and saw that it was engraved with hundreds of the symbols that Genma-sensei called Kanji. She didn’t get any impressions from the kanji carved into the stone, unless she concentrated on individual ones—she had learned that this most often happened with people’s names, because they were comprised of symbols that could also mean other things, taken separately. A stone covered in names…probably meant that this was a memorial, she realized. Just as this thought occurred to her, she also became aware that she was not alone.

“Come to pay your respects?” said a quiet voice.

She turned around quickly. The tall, thin, silver-haired man, with a mask over the bottom half of his face and his hitai-ite worn over one eye, looked vaguely familiar. She peered at him, and it clicked. Of course, she had met him the week before, and Genma-sensei had discussed him during one of their lessons on Konoha’s shinobi. Hatake Kakashi, the Copy Ninja. The headband concealed his borrowed sharingan eye when it wasn’t in use.

Hermione had learned, since her first year at Hogwarts, that famous people often didn’t like having such things pointed out. Anyway, it would be rude to say anything about the man himself, since he had asked her a question first.

“Actually, I arrived here by accident. I was walking around the village and got lost,” she explained.

“Of course,” he said. His visible eye, half-lidded though it was, gave her a once-over. She fidgeted a little under his gaze, but he didn’t say anything more. Instead, he reached behind his back and produced a small bouquet of white chrysanthemums interspersed with cherry blossoms and sweetpea flowers, which he laid on the memorial stone.

“Er…” Hermione said hesitantly. “Aren’t those flowers out of season?”

“Yes,” said Kakashi simply. “But the Yamanaka family’s flower shop keeps three entire greenhouses dedicated to keeping chrysanthemums and sakuras available year-round. There is no way of knowing when they might be needed. And I have an understanding with Inoichi, so I never have to worry about not having an offering.” He indicated the bouquet.

Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it again, unsure of what to say. She wanted to ask a lot of things—she usually did, of course—but she wasn’t sure what would be appropriate. Kakashi wasn’t facing her, and she was on his blind side. Perhaps she should just leave? Just as she resolved to go, however, Kakashi began speaking again.

“He was my best friend, though we never really got along.” He paused for another moment, then went on. “We would argue all the time over what was more important, following the rules or ‘doing what’s right’. He never seemed to have any trouble deciding to do the right thing, or deciding what that was. And he was right, of course, right until the very end.”

Hermione wasn’t sure whether he was really talking to her, but she took a breath and said, “A student at our school died this year, because he chose to try to help someone in trouble rather than save himself. Professor Dumbledore told us that we should think of him, if the time came when we had to make a choice between doing what was right, and what was easy.”

“A wise man,” Kakashi replied. He looked back to Hermione, and his uncovered eye seemed to be smiling. 

“Er…Kakashi-san…” Hermione began. 

“Just ‘Kakashi’ will do, unless we’re training or on a mission together,” he interrupted. “Other honourifics make me feel old.”

“Oh. Um. Okay,” she said, thrown off by this. Honourifics made him feel old? He had silver hair; just how old was he? “What I was going to say was that I don’t want to intrude on your time here.”

Kakashi shrugged. “I spend a lot of time here, and little of it with people, but if I had minded you being here, I would have waited for you to leave before coming out myself.”

Hermione bit her lip. That sounded like an invitation to stay, and if she was going to stay, then he probably wouldn’t be opposed to them talking. So she might as well ask some questions, right? Not about the memorial; that would be too personal. But Genma-sensei had told them that Kakashi was one of the strongest and most feared ninja around, so surely he could tell her some more about about being a ninja?

“Well, um, Kakashi,” she started. He looked at her, but it was hard to read an expression when she couldn’t see most of his face, so she just continued, “How well do you know Genma-sensei?”

“I worked with Genma for several years,” Kakashi said. “He’s an excellent swordsman, and he was one of my sensei’s bodyguards after he became the Yondaime.”

Yondaime. ‘Fourth’. Did that mean…? “Your sensei was the Fourth Hokage?” Hermione asked, her brow furrowed.

“Yes,” he replied. “But of course, when he was training me, he was just Minato-sensei. He used the same training test that I used with my own genin squad. They were the first to ever pass; I’ve sent every other team ever assigned to me, straight back to the Academy. I think we were the first team that Minato-sensei ever passed, as well.

“But you asked me about Genma. Genma has always worn a smirk as his poker face, instead of covering it up like mine.” Here, Kakashi’s visible eye wrinkled in another smile. “His own genin team included Ebisu, who you met, and Maito Gai.”

“I haven’t met him,” Hermione said.

“I could tell. If you had, you would have cringed when I said his name,” Kakashi chuckled. “Maito Gai is a good man and a brilliant shinobi, but his personality can be…overwhelming. Their team worked well enough together after a while, but they started being split up more and more after they became chunin, and each of them followed a different path. Ebisu is a tutor and personal instructor to Sandaime-sama’s grandson. Gai became a jonin instructor. Genma elected to be trained by ANBU for bodyguard detail, until he became your sensei instead.”

“Our last lesson this week with Genma-sensei was on chakra nature transformations,” said Hermione. “He mentioned a person called Zankyou Uragiri. Could you tell me more about him?”

Kakashi’s half-hooded eye gave no indication of his thoughts. Just when Hermione thought he wasn’t going to answer, though, he spoke, “Zankyou Uragiri…He was their genin squad’s second sensei, as a favor to the Sandaime. Genma probably told you how he came to Konoha in the first place, so what more do you want to know?”

“Well…What kind of person was he?” she asked.

“Ah, so that’s your angle,” said Kakshi with another chuckle. “Well, he’s nothing particularly like Genma, at least superficially. Genma enjoys a good joke, whereas Uragiri-sama always struck me as more of the cynical type. The two got on well, though; after their chunin exams, Genma asked Uragiri-sama to take him on as a personal apprentice. Minato-sensei went to help them sometimes, I remember…” He trailed off, evidently lost in memories.

“The subject came up because of the nature transformations,” Hermione began.

“Ah, of course, and he mentioned Uragiri-sama’s youton, right?”

“Yes, and he told us about nature affinities,” she finished. “He gave us some special chakra-paper.”

“Really now?” Kakashi’s visible eyebrow rose noticeably. “You’re pretty early in your training for that. Have you even learned any jutsu yet?”

“No,” Hermione admitted. “But Genma-sensei said he wanted to teach us his own way.”

Kakashi gave a genuine laugh. “Well now, that he definitely picked up from Uragiri-sama. ‘To hell with tradition; just do what works best,’ he used to say.” He was still chortling. “So, Hermione-chan, did you take the chakra paper?”

“Yes,” she answered. “It crumbled into dirt.”

“Hmmm…Doton lends itself well to those who think before they act. Do you think that applies to you, Hermione-chan?” he asked, giving her another long look.

“Erm…well, yes. Generally,” she said, awkwardly.

“It also lends itself will to protecting and supporting others, as well as acting decisively to end battles quickly. It is often based around remaining in contact with the ground, and keeping a low center of balance, often weathering the enemy’s first strike before choosing the perfect moment to retaliate. Or, in other cases, it would mean putting the enemy off-balance, such that such a perfect moment can be created,” Kakashi explained.

Hermione’s brow furrowed. She was going into learning-mode, and her awkwardness was forgotten. “So when I begin learning jutsu, I should expect to focus on skills that will keep me steady, and the enemy unbalanced?”

Kakashi smiled. “Doton is predominantly a short-range art,” he started, but Hermione interrupted him, now on a roll herself.

“So I’ll have to either learn something else for long range or have a teammate cover me until I’m ready. If I’m also going to learn protective jutsu, it’s just as well, in case I do have to work alone. I should also look for ways to trip the enemy up, maybe by affecting the ground in some way…?”

Here, Kakashi nodded and stood up. “I’ll show you two such techniques, though I’ll have to ask you not to practice them yourself until your own sensei says you’re ready.”

Hermione nodded her agreement to his conditions, eager to see what her Earth Style was capable of even if she could not practice it herself just yet.

“Very well then,” Kakashi said. “We’ll start with the defensive jutsu.” His hands snapped through a few seals, and he intoned “Doton: Iwadate no jutsu,” then slammed his open palm against the ground. 

Hermione just had time to understand ‘Rock Shield’, before a chunk of rock erupted from the ground just in front of his hand. It was smooth and curved slightly around him, like a single piece of a dome. Kakashi straightened up carefully, and gestured at the rock. Hermione followed his lead and walked around the other side, standing where the enemy would presumably have been.

“As you can see, it makes for a good defense; it will stop most attacks in their tracks. Watch this.” He made a few more seals, ending with a simple one that Hermione didn’t know. His first two fingers of each hand were extended, and held in front of him in a cross. There was a plume of white smoke, and a second Kakashi stood beside the first. The duplicate crouched behind the rock shield, and the real Kakashi came to stand beside Hermione. 

In rapid succession, he demonstrated another doton, which flung a stone at the barrier that was harmlessly bounced away. He followed up with a suiton, katon, and fuuton technique, all of which were deflected by the rock wall. Hermione walked around to the side so she could see the clone, which waved at her jovially. She heard birds chirping, and looked back at Kakashi, who held his right arm with his left hand. His right fist was the source of the chirping sound, and it seemed to be crackling.

“As you saw, the rock shield repelled all the other elemental attacks,” Kakashi called over the noise. “But as you probably learned from Genma, earth is weak to lightning.” 

He charged at the rock wall and plunged his chirping hand straight through it. The rock crumbled around his fist, which pierced right through the clone. The clone promptly vanished in another puff of smoke, and the rock barrier turned to dust.

“So,” he concluded, brushing idly at his flak vest. “It is a good technique, but not infallible. Don’t rely on it, or any other jutsu, to be a perfect defense.”

Hermione nodded, committing his advice to memory. “Was there another doton jutsu you wanted to show me, Kakshi-sensei?” She figured he would allow the honourific, since he was teaching her something. He had specifically said that she could use one if they were training.

“The other is a simple snare, to help trip up the enemy. You see the rock I threw before?” He indicated the stone he had flung at the rock barrier to test its defense. It was a small boulder, really, and lay some five feet away from them. He made only two hand seals this time, the boar and the hare, before saying “Doton: Wana no jutsu” and again slamming his hand to the ground.

The earth around the boulder shivered, and the boulder began to sink as though into quicksand. Kakashi lifted his hand, ending the jutsu, just before the rock slipped out of sight, and the ground solidified once more. He walked over and kicked at the piece of rock still above ground, but it didn’t move.

“There are more powerful versions of both those jutsu,” he said conversationally. “And lots more interesting doton, but I think that will mostly do for now. I’ll let you have a little quiz, though, and if you get it right, I’ll show you one more popular doton.”

Hermione was a little nervous at the sudden pop quiz, but she wasn’t the top student in her year for nothing. She nodded eagerly.

“All right,” said Kakashi. “What do you think might be meant by a doton technique called ‘Moguragakure no jutsu’, and why might it be a useful technique to know?”

Hermione paused for a moment to break down the jutsu’s name. she recognized ‘gakure’ from the full name of the village, and knew by now that it referred to something ‘hidden’, or perhaps ‘hiding’. That left ‘mogura’, which the charm rendered as ‘mole’.

“Hiding Mole technique?” she guessed. “Would that involve hiding in the dirt, so the enemy can’t find you?” 

Kakashi’s eye wrinkled up in another smile. “And it’s how I will say goodbye to you for today, Hermione-chan,” he answered. His hands blurred together into several seals, and he sank into the ground, leaving no trace he had been there.

She stared at the spot where he had disappeared for a long moment. Then she glanced up at the sky and supposed that it was an appropriate time for her promised visit to the Yamanaka flower shop. She shrugged, and left the training ground, but when she glanced back, Kakashi was again standing beside the memorial stone. She shook her head, and focused on committing his lessons to memory as she walked back toward where she was pretty sure Ino had told her the flower shop was.

She turned out to have remembered correctly, and found the blonde girl sitting behind the counter, apparently having a good-natured argument with the pink-haired girl Hermione had met in Iruka-sensei’s class, Haruno Sakura. Both girls broke off their bickering to greet the brunette warmly, and Ino announced that she was closing the shop for lunch.

“I only work in the mornings on weekends,” she explained to Hermione as she flipped a sign in the window. “My father will re-open the shop after lunch, unless he gets called in to work.”

“Where else does your father work?” Hermione asked.

“Oh, he works with the Interrogation half of Torture and Interrogation,” Ino replied. “Our family’s hiden jutsu revolve around entering the enemy’s mind.” Hermione felt an impression from the translation charm, and realized that Ino had used a foreign word, ‘hiden’, which meant ‘secret tradition’. Though, calling such jutsu ‘hidden’ wouldn’t be far from the truth, she supposed.

Ino led the other two outside and locked the door behind them. “What do you want for lunch, forehead girl?” Ino asked. 

Hermione, thinking that referred to her, opened her mouth indignantly, but Sakura responded. “Depends if you’re going to eat anything other than lettuce, Ino-pig,” she sniped.

“Hmmm…I can certainly afford to cheat on my diet a little,” said Ino patting her flat stomach underneath its bandages, then brushing at an imaginary bit of dust on her violet skirt. She grinned mischieviously, “Let’s get some dumplings go spy on Sasuke-kun.”

Sakura sputtered. “W-what? You’re no better than those little ten-year-old fangirls, Ino-pig!”

Ino smirked. “Of course I am; I’m not bothering him like they do, just watching him be his usual handsome self. Hermione-chan, you saw Sasuke-kun in class last week. Wasn’t he just absolutely delicious?” She turned up the street, and called over her shoulder, “Come on, forehead-girl, Hermione-chan.”

Not having much choice, they followed the blonde toward the dumpling stand, Sakura grumbling under her breath the whole way. “It’s not like he won’t know we’re there; he’s too good a ninja to be that oblivious. Besides, he’ll just ignore us anyway.” She raised her voice a little, “I thought you’d given up on Sasuke-kun, though, Ino-pig, after you got stuck on a team with Chouji and Shikamaru.”

“I was worried at first, when you were placed on his team, forehead-girl,” Ino admitted. “But it’s been a week and you haven’t even made a move; I’m beginning to think you don’t have the nerve. And besides, true love will overcome our distance, and Sasuke-kun will be mine.”

“Dream on, Ino-pig,” groused Sakura.

Hermione, hoping to keep the peace between the two, offered to pay for their dumplings. She made to sit down at a table, but Ino pulled her away. “No, no, I was serious, Hermione-chan. You need stealth practice anyway, so let’s go try to find Sasuke-kun.”

“He’s bound to be in the Uchiha compound, this time of day,” said Sakura, apparently resigned to Ino’s plan.

“Then off we go!” Ino cried. “I’d say we should bring him some dumplings, but he hates sweet foods. More for us, I guess.”

Hermione, who had bought what she thought was probably enough dumplings for the three of them, was relieved that they wouldn’t be splitting them a fourth way. She was hungry, and they smelled delicious. She ate them as she followed the other two girls, tuning out their bickering as she pondered their apparently unexplainable crush on this Sasuke boy.

Hermione remembered vividly the time in third year, when Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil—though usually inseparable—had ceased talking to each other over a mutual crush on a Gryffindor fifth year. Hermione couldn’t understand it. Kenneth Towler wasn’t particularly good-looking, wasn’t a great student, wasn’t a quidditch player; there seemed to be no reason for the attraction. 

Nevertheless, the two girls had nearly come to hair-pulling and eye-scratching on several occasions, and had exchanged verbal barbs to make Ino and Sakura look positively sweet to each other. Hermione, sick of the fighting, began asking people in Kenneth’s year about the boy. The Weasley Twins, who were his dormmates, were more than happy to spill the beans, and Hermione became even more confused when their description of what he was like failed to match either Lavender’s or Parvati’s already-conflicting descriptions of the boy they were both supposedly in love with. 

To top it off, Towler had turned out to be interested in boys, making both girls embarrassed enough to make nice with each other. In the end, it seemed more like they were both chasing a sort of idealized image of what they thought a perfect boyfriend should be like, and only once they had both gotten over it were they able to be friends again. Hermione had a strong feeling something similar was going on here. She sighed, throwing away her takeaway box in a trash can that would later be emptied by genin on a D-rank mission, and followed Ino and Sakura through a gate marked by a painted red and white fan. 

They slipped into the bushes just inside the gate, and made their way around the perimeter. “Sasuke-kun usually comes down to the lake on Saturdays,” Sakura whispered.

“Ha!” Ino crowed, “and how would you know that if you weren’t out here spying on him, forehead-girl?”

“I am on his team, you know,” Sakura spat back, though Hermione couldn’t help noticing that her cheeks had turned almost as pink as her hair.

The three of them crept forwarf until they were crouched behind a bush on the edge of the lake, which stretched away to their left. The street ran directly in front of them, a few meters away, ending in a dock. There was already a black-haired boy standing on the dock, but…

“That’s not Sasuke-kun,” Ino whispered.

“No, that’s Harry,” Hermione answered. 

“Ahhh…” Ino smirked. “Did you know he was here? Is that why you came with us, Hermione-chan?”

“What? No!” said Hermione sharply. “I’m Harry’s friend, not his fangirl!”

“Quiet, Sasuke-kun is coming!” Sakura hissed. They all quieted down, because she was quite right.

“He’s probably coming to kick Harry out of the compound,” said Ino. “He doesn’t like people coming in here.”

“Oh yeah?” said Sakura. “Then why’s he going out onto the dock with him?”

“Maybe he’s going to push Harry into the water?” said Ino. “Or maybe…” She broke off as Sasuke breathed fire out over the lake. “…maybe he’s going to show off to intimidate him into leaving?” she finished, sounding confused.

“Harry doesn’t look very intimidated, does he?” Sakura asked Hermione. 

Hermione shook her head as Harry sat down on the edge of the dock. “He looks impressed though.”

“Of course he does,” said Ino. “Did you see the size of that fireball? My Sasuke-kun is amazing.”

“Oi, what do you mean your Sasuke-kun, Ino-pig?” Sakura growled.

Ino waved a hand to hush the pink-haired girl, but Sakura had already frozen. “Sasuke-kun…sat down next to him?” she asked incredulously.

They watched in silence for another moment, until Harry drew his wand. Both girls tensed, as if they thought Harry was going to attack Sasuke, but he just showed the wand to the other boy before putting it away again.

“What was that?” Sakura asked.

“A magic wand,” Hermione replied without thinking.

Ino snickered. “What, like an evil witch in a fairy tale?”

Hermione shrugged, and drew her own wand, holding it up for Ino to see. “As Harry’s probably explaining, we aren’t allowed to use magic outside of our school. It’s against the law; we could be arrested for it. So you don’t have to believe us, but Harry is really a wizard.”

“What…does that make you?” breathed Sakura.

“A witch,” said Hermione. “But not an evil one,” she added, smiling at Ino.

They all turned back to look at the two dark-haired boys on the dock, but after a moment, Harry’s head snapped around to stare at the bush where they were hiding. All three of them quickly ducked, hoping they hadn’t been seen. 

When they dared to look again, it was to see Harry spit out a mouthful of water and start choking. Sasuke thumped him on the back, and soon they were both laughing together.

Ino and Sakura looked at each other, then wordlessly retreated into the trees. Hermione followed them, looking between the two. Neither spoke as they walked all the way back to the flower shop. The young Konoha kunoichi both sat down almost woodenly, and Hermione started to get nervous.

“Are you two all right?” she asked.

“Sasuke-kun was…laughing,” said Sakura. She seemed in shock. “Not a sneering laugh; a real one.”

“He…he smiled,” said Ino. “I’ve been in love with him for years and I’ve never seen him smile.”

“It was…” Sakura began.

“He was…” Ino said at the same time.

Seemingly obliviously, they both finished at the same time, “…beautiful.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, then started bickering again, falling back into a comfortable routine as they tried to process what they had seen. Hermione, for her part, pinched the bridge of her nose before trying to referee the argument. She had a feeling that this wouldn’t be the last time she would have to mediate between the two.

* * *

For his part, Ron slept in until a comfortable hour, then rolled over and slept in a little more. When he did wake up, it was about time for him to meet Shikamaru, so he rolled out of bed and did some stretches, washed his face, got dressed, and picked up his wand, sword, and money pouch. The wand went up his sleeve, where his mesh armour kept it snugly in place. His money pouch sat next to several kunai his belted hip pouch, and the sword strapped to his lower back in the now-familiar position. He didn’t know what it was, but it just felt right.

He started to tie his hitai-ite around his neck, but something occurred to him. He smiled, and tied it around his right arm, instead, opposite where Shikamaru kept his own. There, that was much more masculine.

Ron glanced at the sky as he left the apartment. It was almost lunchtime. He bought something called dango from a stand nearby, which turned out to be sweet sort of dumplings on a stick. He bought several skewers, and set out again nibbling on one. It was an odd combination of flavours—savoury as well as sweet—but he quite liked it. He met the sensei of Team 10, Sarutobi Asuma, at the gate leading up to the house he had been told to come to, and took it as a sign that he was in the right place.

He offered a skewer of dango to Asuma, and to a yawning Shikamaru as he joined them on the porch, but both declined. Shikamaru crossed to a shelf, and lifted down a game board divided into a grid. The board was rectangular rather than square, but the grid was still nine by nine; as Asuma and Shikamaru set up the game, Ron saw that the pieces themselves were pentagon-shaped pieces of wood, and were longer than they were wide. 

He settled down onto a straw mat, like the one the other two were seated on, and pulled out a fresh stick of dango as Asuma began to explain the pieces and rules of Shougi. As the manners of movement and attack began to fall into place in his mind, a smile spread across Ron’s face. This was a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, did the characters ever run away with this and the last chapter. Note that this WAS a double-update, so be sure to pop back if you missed the last chapter.
> 
> Harry's encounter with Sasuke was originally going to be waaaay more confrontational, but Sasuke kept wanting to talk to Harry instead of chucking kunai at him. What can I say? Maybe he sensed a kindred spirit? Harry was supposed to meet with the Hyuugas that day, but Sasuke totally monopolized the time, so I'm going to have to work that in later. [Also, would you use 'dobe' as a suffix like that? Or is it treated like a pronoun?] 
> 
> I also had no plans for Hermione to meet Kakashi, or for her to end up stalking Harry and Sasuke. All she was supposed to do that day was talk to Ino and Sakura at the flower shop, and instead look what happened. Sheesh, you give these characters and inch and they take a mile. At least Ron was kind enough to stay on target and just sleep, eat, and chill. =_=


	7. News Spreads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry meets the Hyuugas, Ron begins kenjutsu training, and Hermione makes an unsettling observation.

Sunday dawned bright and relatively cold for a Konoha summer. Surprisingly, all three Hogwarts students were awake to see it. They gathered in Harry’s apartment for a breakfast of eggs and makeshift kippers, then settled in to discuss their adventures of the day before. After Ron spent ten minutes describing the movements of different pieces in Shogi, Harry turned to Hermione instead.

“So, you were practicing stealth and pursuit, right?” he asked pointedly. She blushed, and Harry allowed himself a smirk. It looked like Sasuke had been right.

“It was…something like that,” Hermione mumbled. “Not my idea though.”

“What?” asked Ron.

Harry opened his mouth, but Hermione rushed to answer. “Ino and Sakura wanted to show me the boy they both like, so they dragged me along when they went to go spy on him. When we got there, Harry was already talking to him.” Harry chuckled.

Hermione continued, “Honestly, that pair of twits reminded me of Parvati and Lavender at their very worst. Remember their mutual crush on Kenneth Towler?”

“Wha—?” said Ron, who had apparently failed to notice the fights that had fascinated most of Gryffindor the previous year. Of course, the three of them had been more worried about Sirius Black, but even so…

“That bloke in Fred and George’s year?” Harry asked.

Hermione sighed. “Yes, they were at each other’s throats for months because they were both ‘in love’ with him, even though they didn’t know anything about him.”

Harry chuckled. “Sasuke said as much.”

Ron looked at him. “The scowly one with the black hair?”

Harry nodded. “He’s all right. Bit lonely, I think. Well, you know what Genma-sensei told us about the Uchiha clan.”

They lapsed into silence, thinking about Genma’s story of the Uchiha prodigy’s betrayal. Privately, they all thought there was something fishy about the story…and privately, Genma had confided, he agreed with them. However, it was a sore enough subject around the village that they were better off not bringing it up.

Just as they were casting around for another topic of conversation, there was a rap at the door. They glanced at each other, then Harry pulled it open to reveal Genma himself.

His teacher clacked the senbon in his teeth. “Remind me to teach you about home security tomorrow,” he said acerbically. “Is Ron-kun here?”

Ron joined Harry at the door, and Genma gave his usual smirk. “Get geared up and meet me at our usual training ground for your first kenjutsu lesson.”

Ron’s mouth fell open a little. “But you said we were only training during weekdays,” he said weakly.

Genma’s smirk widened. “I can only require you to train with me five days a week, but you are allowed to request additional training…which you did, when you bought that sword. Get dressed and let’s go; it’s time you learned which end of the sword is which.”

Grumbling, Ron headed back to his own apartment to change. Genma turned to Harry, “Hokage-sama wants to see you in his office, Harry-kun.”

Harry nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I mean, sensei,” he amended. Genma chuckled. 

“Hermione-chan,” Genma called over Harry’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any lesson planned for you today.”

“That’s all right, sensei!” Hermione chirped. “Our translation charm—er, what you call a mahoujutsu—has finally advanced far enough that I’m able to do a bit of reading, so I’m planning to work my way through some of Konoha’s history.”

“Excellent, Hermione-chan,” Genma smiled, looking genuinely pleased to have found a student who agreed so wholeheartedly with Genma’s Rule Number Seven: that there was no such thing as useless knowledge. “You know, all three of you should be proud of yourselves—you’ve already advanced to the point where you can start training with other sensei and with your peers without embarrassing yourselves.”

Just then, Ron reemerged in his training clothes, which were wrinkled and dirty. Genma’s smirk became a bit condescending, and Ron said, defensively, “I was going to do the washing today!”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Genma. “Come on then, the usual spot.” He vanished in a blur, without so much as a swirl of dust or leaves.

Ron heaved a sigh, turned to the other two and said, “See you later, then?”

“'Course,” said Harry. Hermione darted off back to her apartment, presumably to settle into her reading. Harry locked up his own apartment and followed Ron down the stairs, parting ways at the bottom. Ron jogged off toward training ground seventeen, while Harry made his way back to the Hokage’s Academy Office.

When he reached the Academy’s rear entrance, he paused before the guards, but the tall, scar-faced one—Raidou, he thought—simply waved him past without a word.

Harry raised his hand to knock on the office door, but before he could do so, the Hokage’s voice called out, “Come in.” It was, Harry decided, every bit as unnerving as when Dumbledore did it.

“Ah, Harry-kun, welcome,” the old ninja greeted him warmly when he opened the door. “Please, come and sit.”

Harry sat, noticing as he did so that the Hokage was not alone. The stranger had long, sandy-blond hair drawn back in a ponytail that reached halfway down his back, and flat, jade-coloured eyes under heavy eyebrows. He was watching Harry intently, running a hand over his large square jaw. In his other hand, he balanced a thin book on one finger. Harry glanced at it, and saw that the title was in English: _Occlumency for the Occluded_.

He turned back toward the desk. “You wanted to see me, Hokage-sama?”

The old man smiled. “Harry, this is Yamanaka Inoichi, who will be working with you on a new aspect of your training, as recommended to me by Albus-san.”

“What’s that, sir?” Harry asked, shooting another glance at the book in Inoichi’s hand.

“It is called Occlumency,” said the Hokage, hardly hesitating at all over the foreign word. “I understand it involves mental defense against external penetration or deception.” 

Defense against external penetration? Harry thought of what questions Hermione was likely to ask. Was Dumbledore afraid that Voldemort might try to take over Harry’s mind? It seemed likely. But then why had Dumbledore waited until now to have him begin studying Occlumency?

“Albus-san wrote you a letter to explain,” Sarutobi finished, breaking Harry’s train of thought. He pushed a small scroll of parchment—noticeably different from the thin paper or thick vellum usually used in Konoha—across the table toward Harry, who unrolled it and saw Dumbledore’s characteristic handwriting.

_Harry,_  
 _This letter accompanies a book on the subject of Occlumency, which I wish for you to begin studying at once._  
 _When you are able to return to Hogwarts, I will arrange for further instruction in Occlumency with Professor Snape, who is perhaps the most talented Occlumens alive today._  
 _I hope that the rest of your stay in Konoha is a pleasant one._  
 _Yours most sincerely,_  
 _Albus Dumbledore_

Well. That was…fairly unhelpful, Harry thought. He gritted his teeth. Dumbledore had always had a mysterious way about him, but after Harry’s experience following the Third Task, he had thought the headmaster might be starting to open up to him; might be ready to share some of the secrets that he had been keeping for years. Apparently not.

Seeing that Harry was finished reading, and apparently noticing his frustrated expression, the Hokage began to speak again. “The Yamanaka clan’s hiden jutsu revolve around entering the target’s mind, Harry-kun.” Harry looked up, interested. Albus-san thinks it important that you study Occlumency, so you shall. I also think we can also make another lesson out of the experience—namely, that you and your squad learn to recognise mental intrusions and resist interrogation.”

“I-interrogation?” Harry stammered, knowing full-well what a ninja interrogation typically involved.

“Interrogation _only_ ,” Sarutobi clarified. “Do I look like someone who would allow the torture of allies, Harry-kun?” he asked sharply. His voice softened, and he continued, “I am interested to see if this Occlumency will allow you to resist the Yamanakas’ technique, but even if it does not, training against interrogation will teach you to at least recognise when someone is trying to affect your mind, which will in turn make genjutsu easier for you to notice and dispel.”

Harry nodded to show that he understood.

“Finally,” said the Sandaime, “while your sensei is aware of these extra lessons and approves of them, you are not to mention them or Occlumency to anyone outside of your squad, under any circumstances. The existence of both is entirely classified. Do you understand me?”

The old man’s eyes were suddenly harsh, and Harry fought the urge to cringe. He nodded again, and croaked, “Yes, Hokage-sama.” The Hokage studied him intently for another moment, then gave a nod of his own, most of the menace leaving his eyes as he gave Harry another smile.

As Harry’s breathing returned to normal, Inoichi spoke up for the first time. “First lesson:” he said in a pleasant baritone. “What you just experienced is known among shinobi as ‘killing intent’. It is most frequently used for intimidation purposes, but it can be rather difficult to control, especially if the shinobi is in an emotional state of mind. When a shinobi is focused, however, his killing intent can be sharp enough to pierce the attention of even a hardened enemy.”

“While I am all in favor of Harry beginning his new study, I believe that the weekend should be taken for relaxation if at all possible,” said the Hokage. Recognising the dismissal, Inoichi bowed, passed the book to Harry, and left the room.

The Professor continued, “You and your squad will have a week to read this book, Harry-kun, after which point Inoichi-san will begin to meet with you after your evening meals. Do you have any questions?”

“No, Hokage-sama,” said Harry. Actually, he had a lot of questions, but they were all for Dumbledore—he understood the Hokage’s instructions perfectly well.

“Very well then, Harry-kun, enjoy the rest of your day,” Sarutobi dismissed him with a smile.

Harry bowed deeply and left, pulling the door carefully shut behind him, already lost in thought. He utterly failed to see the Hokage’s slight grin at his focus, and could not have known how much he reminded the Sandaime in that moment of the only other genin to work himself so hard.

* * *

When Ron arrived at training ground seventeen, he found Genma holding a small wooden box and two lengths of wood. As Ron shut the gate behind himself, Genma lay the box beside the standing wall and tossed Ron one of the sticks. Startled, Ron managed to catch it, realising as he did so that it was carved into roughly the shape of a sword. He had caught it by the “blade”, so he quickly grabbed the handle instead.

“I know you didn’t buy a bokutou the other day; you can keep that one,” said Genma by way of greeting. Though he didn’t need the clarification, the translation charm _helpfully_ supplied ‘wooden sword’.

Genma chewed the end of his senbon for a moment before continuing. “We’ll start with basic kenjutsu kata, the way we did with your taijutsu. I’ll work some of this into your daily practice; it’s almost time for you three to begin splitting up between different sensei, so you and I will occasionally have individual kenjutsu lessons during the week. We’ll continue to meet on weekends, but you _will_ continue on your own time.”

Ron nodded.

“Good. We’ll also be covering sword care before I let you go today, but first thing’s first:” Genma stepped toward Ron. “Your grip is atrocious. You’re holding that thing like a stick you’re going to throw for a dog to fetch.”

He swiped at Ron with his own bokutou. Ron held his up for protection, and it went spinning out of his hand. Genma pulled the blow before he hit Ron, tapping him lightly on the neck. “And now you’re disarmed and dead. Fifty push-ups, then go get it and try again.”

Scowling slightly, Ron did as he was told. It wasn’t his fault that Genma didn’t tell him the right way to do it. He held his tongue, however. Though he knew Genma would not punish him further for griping, there was also nothing to be gained from it. He retrieved the bokutou and held it in his hand more firmly, like a beater’s bat.

Genma came at him again, and Ron felt the impact jar his arm from wrist to elbow. He didn’t drop the bokutou, but he also couldn’t get it up in time to block Genma’s second strike, which ended in another tap to his throat.

“You’re staggered, your guard is broken, and you’re dead,” Genma summarized. “Fifty more…No, actually, you managed to hold onto it this time, so I’ll make it thirty.”

Though he was careful to keep his form correct, Ron hurried through the push-ups, knowing that before even the single week he had spent in Konoha he would have been tired out by the workout. Now the punishment push-ups hardly counted as a warm-up. Sometimes he was amazed at how much stronger he had become, but that came when he was lying in bed at night. During training, he mostly felt aware of the overwhelming gap between student and teacher. As he straightened up again, he took the bokutou in a two-handed grip instead, with his right hand on top, and planted his feet.

“Better, but still wrong,” said Genma. He rushed at Ron for a third time, feinted to the left, then slipped to the right around Ron’s guard and struck the back of his knee. Ron’s leg buckled, and as he knelt he felt Genma’s bokutou again at his throat. “Where _are_ you getting those grips from? Fifty this time.”

As he sighed and started the newest set of push-ups, Ron began to grumble to himself more insistently. It wasn’t his fault! Genma had yet to explain how to do it right; why did he seem so disappointed? Focusing on that as his body did the exercise automatically, Ron turned Genma’s words over in his mind. Where was he getting his grips from? From Quidditch, he supposed. When he had been learning how to fly, he had copied his brothers’ grips on their brooms. But Quidditch wasn’t kenjutsu, and Ron suddenly realised what he had been missing. He wondered for a moment why it had taken him so long. After all, it was how he managed to learn most of the material at Hogwarts, too—he looked at what Hermione had done. When you didn’t know how to do something, you followed the example of someone who did. 

This time, when Ron got to his feet, he took a careful look at how Genma was holding his own bokutou. His left hand held the hilt at the bottom, with his last two fingers neatly cupping the pommel. His right hand was near the guard at the top, where again his lower fingers provided the grip. The first two fingers on each hand were pressed against the hilt, but not really gripping it. Testing out the new way of holding the bokutou, Ron was amazed at how easily the whole thing seemed to move. He could move the “blade” quickly in any direction—slash, thrust, guard, and parry were so much more fluid like this. At the same time, his grip was strong enough to deliver a proper strike, yet flexible enough to let him keep hold of it when the opponent struck.

Seeing Genma’s smirk widen into a genuine smile, Ron knew he’d done it right. He grinned back, and quickly had to raise the bokutou as Genma came at him yet again. He blocked three attacks, and even tried slashing back at Genma—a mistake, as it turned out. As soon as Ron committed to the attack, Genma twisted his own bokutou through a block, robbing Ron of his balance, and tapped his throat yet again. 

Ron sighed, and prepared for more push-ups, but Genma didn’t give him a chance. “Not now, Ron-kun; it’s time to learn the first kata.”

Firming his now-correct grip, Ron nodded and grinned. Despite the difficulty of the lessons, there was no denying that learning how to use a sword was downright wicked.

* * *

Harry wandered aimlessly after leaving the Hokage’s office. He thought of finding somewhere to start reading _Occlumency for the Occluded_ , but didn’t fancy returning to his rather spartan apartment; sitting under a tree would probably be more comfortable anyway. He had no particular wish to sit with Hermione when she was engrossed in reading—she didn’t make very good company when in study-mode—and Ron was surely busy with Genma.

Actually, it would probably be better to let Hermione read the book first. She would be done the fastest, and could help Ron and him if they had trouble with it. He paused, wondering if he should take it to her now, but decided against it. She could start on it this evening; she had been looking forward to being able to read Japanese and didn’t want to spoil her fun.

Taking a different route than the previous day, he began to wander around the village, moving away from the base of the Hokage Monument, in the opposite direction from the Uchiha compound. Sasuke had mentioned in passing that he would be busy today. He didn’t say what would be occupying him, but Harry did not want to pry, so he simply took a different route.

“Yosh! I am passing on your left!”

Harry glanced over his shoulder, and sidestepped as a boy sprinted by him. Harry actually felt the wind of the boy’s passing ruffle his hair a little. Watching his retreating form, Harry recognised the green jumpsuit and orange leg-warmers…and the only worse bowl-cut than Crabbe’s. It was the student Harry had seen training yesterday—apparently he didn’t believe in taking a day off.

Some ten minutes later, the cry came again: “Yosh! I am passing on your left!”

Harry, stepping out of the way again, marvelled once more at how fast the guy was running. Having had a little better look at him this time, Harry thought that he might be a little older than Naruto or Sasuke—maybe a third-year as Hogwarts reckoned things. By the time Harry could complete the thought, the boy was out of sight around the curve of the village’s path once again.

Shortly afterward, Harry heard the pounding of feet behind him as he was passing a high wall daubed with the sign of the Yin-Yang symbol, which some part of Harry’s mind remembered that Genma had called a Taijitu. Not wanting to hear the enthusiastic boy shout again, Harry slipped around the corner of the wall and pressed himself against it. The boy tore by without noticing Harry, who let out a sigh of relief. As he straightened up and made to step back onto the street, however, Harry heard a girl’s voice gasp audibly. He froze, but no further sound came. He looked around, determining that it had come from inside the wall. 

Harry stood there for a moment, debating with himself. It probably wasn’t any of his business, and the part of him that remembered getting into trouble at Hogwarts for snooping was eager to move on. On the other hand, his Marauding instincts were urging him to find out more. In the end, it was his burgeoning ninja reactions that made him decide to investigate. Genma had pounded into his head that the status of a Hidden Village not currently at war was not “peace” so much as…well, he, Ron, and Hermione had provided the term “constant vigilance!” 

The noise he had heard _could_ be nothing, and he would look like a fool for investigating…or it could be significant, and overlooking it would be a dereliction of his duty as a Konoha shinobi.

He began to walk back along the wall until he reached the place where he deemed the sound to have come from, and then glared at the wood, wishing it were just a bit lower. There was nothing near enough to climb up, and Genma had not started teaching them how to walk up walls yet. 

On the other hand, he _had_ explained the theory at Hermione’s request. It involved directing a steady flow of chakra to the soles of the feet, so that they would adhere to the surface. He made a point of ignoring that generally he would learn to climb trees in this manner first, since all living things had their own chakra which would help the technique, whereas climbing the inanimate wall would require all of the chakra to be his.

Still, Harry was reasonably confident in his Leaf Concentration, and he thought he could channel chakra to his feet. The wall was only about eight feet high, after all. Pressing his hands together to focus his chakra, Harry placed a foot against the wall and took a step up.

He fell immediately, and determined to increase the chakra flow. When he did, though, the dirt beneath his feet cracked before he even lifted his foot. Staring at this intently, he decided to try for a happy medium, and placed his foot against the wall once more.

It seemed to stick, so Harry tentatively put more of his weight on it. By the time he had placed his other foot above it on the wall, sweat had broken out all over his face, and lifting his foot to take the third step had him trembling. Deciding to throw caution to the winds, Harry bent at the waist to fling himself _upward_ , and scrabbled desperately for the top of the wall…

* * *

Fascinated, Hermione turned the page of one of the books in front of her. She’d had a little trouble at first, but her confusion cleared up as soon as she realised that formal Japanese was written top-to-bottom and right-to-left. Really, she had intended to skim through the history volume she had been lent, but she had noticed two successively more interesting books in the pile she had borrowed.

The first was titled _Kouboujutsu_ , which she had determined meant something like ‘Warfare-techniques’, and was all about different thought patterns and methods of strategy employed by commanders in warfare. The author was evidently an ancient samurai from the Land of Iron, and according to Genma the book was a perennial favorite of Sarutobi Asuma. She had made it through a few chapters, and at some point in each one, had made a mental note to show the book to Ron and insist that he read it, only to remember that she had already made said note.

The second book, the title of which translated much more smoothly, was _The Path of Justice_ by Namikaze Minato. Recognizing the author immediately as Kakashi’s sensei, the Fourth Hokage, Hermione had dropped the other book at once. Minato’s book seemed to ramble a little, covering everything from the man’s preferred mnemonics when he was in school to the development of his personal philosophy, embodied in what he called the Will of Fire—that love was the key to peace, and that strength of character mattered more than strength of arms. Despite the apparent vagaries, Hermione found she quite like the Yondaime’s writing style; it was fluid and engaging, easy to follow while still successfully explaining difficult concepts.

There was also a picture of Minato-sama at the back of the book. She studied it carefully, glancing occasionally out the window at the mountain monument. The great stone face was a surprisingly good likeness, she thought, perfectly recognisable when compared to the image in the book, even without color and showing a serious face, as opposed to the smile he had worn for the author’s image.

Something about that smile ticked in Hermione’s memory, and a tiny crease appeared in her forehead as she leant down to study the Yondaime’s image more carefully. Judging by the background, he was tall, perhaps just shy of six feet, with bright blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. He was handsome, too; impressive in his flame-bedecked jacket, but still seemed approachable. She focused on the smile, since that was what had intrigued her. It was an almost sheepish grin that seemed at once shy and confident. She just couldn’t think why it looked so annoyingly familiar…

* * *

After an hour learning kata with the bokutou, Ron had decided that the sword was what had been missing from his life—it felt almost as much an extension of his arm as his wand…at least, as much as the wand that had chosen him in Diagon Alley last year. He couldn’t wait to start learning other weapons, other tools. All the things he’d seen on the walls of Tenten’s dad’s shop; he wanted to try them all! 

He suddenly remembered that Genma had promised to “send him her way” if he showed any talent at bukijutsu, which he knew referred to weapon skills. Deciding quietly that more time spent with the pretty weapons girl would be time well-spent, he drew himself into the next kata under Genma’s watchful eye, grinned at his sensei, and swung the bokutou into the prescribed attack form…

* * *

Groaning with the effort and unable to believe how much chakra he seemed to have spent, Harry heaved himself atop the wall and sat there, panting. His heart rate normalised quickly though, and he didn’t feel nearly as exhausted as he had a few days previously, when Genma had forced them to experience chakra depletion. Thinking about it, he supposed it was more the suddenness of the expenditure, rather than the amount.

Suddenly remembering why he had climbed the wall in the first place, Harry looked around. He was overlooking a small garden tucked between several buildings in a large estate. The insides of the walls were built with sturdy trellises, and small gravel paths led around flower beds full of what he thought were hydrangeas. In the center was a small rock garden, complete with a deer-scarer fountain. Seated on a small stone bench facing the fountain, wrapped in a pretty lilac kimono, was the girl Harry had met in Iruka-sensei’s classroom, Hyuuga Hinata.

Her shoulders were trembling slightly, but she didn’t seem to be in any real danger, and Harry began to feel really embarrassed. He would have liked to comfort her, since she was obviously distraught, but on the other hand, this was plainly private property, and he didn’t have the excuse of it being open and obviously empty, as he had at the Uchiha compound the day before. Here he was climbing a wall obviously intended for privacy, ostensibly spying on a girl he had barely met. Yeah, that didn’t seem horribly creepy at all. Harry could all but hear Genma’s guffaw and Sirius’ barklike laugh. Just as he began to shift his weight to drop back down to street level in the alleyway, Hinata suddenly stiffened.

She jumped to her feet and whirled around, drawing a kunai from up the sleeve of her kimono. Her short hair flared, and Harry had time to notice that there seemed to be protruding veins around her eyes before he processed that she had flung the knife straight at him. He ducked, grateful to Genma for training them on dodging, but overbalanced and tumbled off the wall in the wrong direction.

At this point, a combination of his ninja and Quidditch training took over, and he instinctively twisted to lessen the impact when he hit the ground. By the time his head cleared, however, he had been knocked flat again. Hinata knelt on top of him, her knees pinning his arms and another kunai at his throat, before she blinked and froze. The swollen veins around her eyes faded, and she stared down at him, confused.

“Harry-san?”

Harry, not trusting himself to speak, nodded slowly. He made no effort to move, and tried very hard to ignore the knife she still held to his jugular…and the warm weight of the girl who was, for lack of a better term, straddling his chest. He could practically see the smirk on Genma’s face, and he gulped a little, feeling the kunai’s edge against his adam’s apple.

“What are you doing here?” Hinata asked. She seemed so startled that she forgot her shyness, her usual stutter nowhere in evidence. 

“I…I heard someone who sounded upset and I started thinking about a lot of ways that it could be something terrible, so I had to investigate, and I managed to walk up the wall a little bit, and then when I reached the top I realised how stupid I was being, and…” he trailed off. She was still staring at him. Up close, he thought he saw a tear track drying on her cheek. Had she been crying?

Harry felt like an idiot. Obviously the sound had been Hinata’s sob, and while he was glad to have distracted her, he wished he could have done so without making such a fool of himself.

“Um…” they both said at the same time. Hinata blushed, but Harry bit his tongue and nodded for her to continue as she finally pulled the kunai away from his neck.

“Were you really worried?” she asked softly.

“Well…Genma-sensei is always telling us to be aware of our surroundings and be prepared for anything,” said Harry. “That’s two of his special rules.”

“Special rules?”

“He calls them ‘Genma’s Rules’,” Harry explained. “I think Hermione has started writing them down. He numbers them, but we aren’t sure yet if he has an actual list or if he’s making them up as he goes along.”

“Like what?” asked Hinata.

“Like…the one I broke, climbing straight up the wall like that. ‘Genma’s Rule Number Eleven: Always have a plan,’” Harry quoted, squinting his eyes closed in embarrassment. “I didn’t have a plan, and look where it’s got me.”

Hinata giggled, and finally got up. She brushed off her kimono and offered Harry a hand to get back to his feet.

* * *

Hermione was extremely frustrated as the familiarity of the Yondaime’s smile remained just out of reach. That gentle smile seemed to taunt her whether she looked at the page or the monument, and she pressed her fingers to the corners of her eyes.

She froze, staring between her fingertips at the middle of the Fourth’s great stone face. Turning back to the book, Hermione covered the picture’s cheeks with her fingers, looking at the narrow strip of face she could still see. That spiky blond hair and blue eyes… She pulled her fingers away and stared at Namikaze Minato’s handsome face. If you imagined him younger; rounded out the sharp chin with a bit of baby fat, and with thin marks like whiskers on his cheeks… 

No, she had to be wrong. There was no way that such a “secret” could be kept, was there? Perhaps there was something else; some clue she was missing that was leading her to the wrong conclusion. Naruto’s family name wasn’t Namikaze, after all, it was Uzumaki…though, if it was supposed to be a secret, she supposed that was the first thing that she would change. 

Maybe there was something in the name Uzumaki she could trace? She found an old class roster that the Sandaime had given them to help them learn their new allies’ names. The blond boy grinned at her from the second-to-last picture on the list…with that same damned smile. 

No, she was looking for more than that. Uzumaki. She focused on the individual kanji and meanings started to float up at her. ‘Uzu’ meant ‘eddy of water’ or ‘vortex’. ‘Maki’ had a handful of meanings, none of which seemed to fit…but when she pondered them together, she came up with ‘Uzumaki’ meaning ‘whirlpool’ or ‘maelstrom’… That had a familiar ring, too. She wondered if it was possible to get the translation charm to work the other way, if she concentrated hard enough.

“Whirlpool,” Hermione muttered to herself. “Whirlpool…” 

The idea she had been chasing came to her then, though not because of the charm. It had been the day they’d met Naruto, when Genma took the four new genin to the tailor. Naruto had wanted that spiral symbol on his clothes to be brighter, and Genma had shouted him down. That spiral…or should she say vortex? He wore it in bright orange on all of his casual clothes, as well as in a dark, muted red on his uniforms. She hadn’t thought much of it before, figuring that maybe Naruto simply liked that symbol, but perhaps there was another reason? Some clans used symbols, like the red-and-white fan that represented the Uchiha. A spiral could easily be clan symbol, she supposed. There wasn’t an Uzumaki clan, was there?

Actually, that wasn’t the first time she had seen that symbol, now that she thought about it. It was the same spiral as in Konoha’s leaf, which meant it was the same as that other village on the island they had noticed on the map in the Hokage’s spare room. She had requested that book specifically—the same history book she had originally meant to read today. She turned the pages frantically until she found the map again. Scanning through the page opposite, she found the little spiral again, next to the name of a village: Uzushiogakure. Aha! ‘Uzushio’ also meant ‘whirlpool’. The Village Hidden by Whirlpools? That sounded like a promising home for a family whose very name meant “whirlpool”, didn’t it? 

In fact, Hermione suddenly remembered Genma referring to Naruto’s spiral as “the symbol of Uzushiogakure”! Both Genma-sensei and Kakashi wore it on both shoulders of their uniform, and it featured prominently on the official flak vest that was awarded to shinobi who reached chunin rank. She returned eagerly to the description of Uzushio in the history book. And there it was! Konoha and Uzushio were founded by distant cousins, and the two villages had signed a treaty for permanent alliance—Konoha had incorporated Uzushio’s spiral into their own symbol and uniform as a mark of that friendship. The book even confirmed that the foremost clan of Uzushio was called Uzumaki, and went on to add that one of Uzushio’s founding members had later sealed the alliance by marrying Senju Hashirama, the First Hokage. The famous Shodaime Hokage and his wife were together responsible for bringing together the village that Konoha would become.

As she read on, though, her face grew stonier. Uzushio had been razed to the ground about twenty-five years ago, and its few survivors—optimistically estimated at less than ten people—scattered across the elemental nations. Hermione supposed it would make sense for at least some of them to come to Konoha, given their villages’ close ties, but it still wasn’t much to go on in terms of hard evidence. In relation to her other supposition… 

Hermione glanced back at the grinning picture of Namikaze Minato. The timelines didn’t _quite_ match up, she was forced to admit. Twenty-five years ago, Minato would have been about seventeen years old; seven years out of the academy according to Genma’s lectures. She knew that he had become the Yondaime at the age of 28, and had died before his 31st birthday. Still, there was nothing to say that one of Uzushio’s refugees couldn’t have been about his age…and if she had come along about that time, who was to say they couldn’t have had a baby? 

Hermione closed the book on Minato’s face and sat staring blankly at the table for a long time. Her evidence was still only circumstantial. The fact remained that nobody, not even Genma, had said anything about the Yondaime having a son. It seemed like the sort of thing that would be impossible to keep secret. Wouldn’t Naruto have boasted of it, whenever he spoke of his dream to become Hokage himself? How could the entire village fail to know, with as well-loved as the Fourth Hokage seemed to have been? Indeed, why did Naruto seem to be an outcast, if he was indeed the son of the village’s most popular leader?

…She _really_ needed to talk to Genma-sensei.

* * *

Laughter rang across the Hyuuga compound garden that had one belonged to Hinata’s mother. Despite his awkward entry, Harry and Hinata were having a good time. Now that their mutual embarrassment had faded somewhat, they were getting along as well as they had in Iruka-sensei’s classroom. As the sun rose to its peak, however, they were interrupted by a young man with long hair who wore his hitai-ite across his forehead exactly like Harry.

“Hinata-sama, who is this?” the newcomer asked.

Hinata jumped. “A-ah,” she said, her nervous stammer returning for the first time that day. “Neji-onii-san, this is Potter Harry. He is an honoured guest of Konoha, being n-newly trained as a shinobi.” The translation charm rendered ‘nii-san’ as literally meaning ‘older brother’, with the added ‘o-’ prefix making it a little more respectful when directly addressing him, but Harry also understood that it was not only used for blood siblings.

Neji’s eyes, blank white like Hinata’s, moved to Harry. Harry had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being inspected; weighed and measured like potions ingredients for quality. Here was a boy who actually managed some of the cold aloofness that Sasuke seemed to aspire to. Harry thought Neji could even give Draco Malfoy a run for his considerable money. 

Still, Harry had not gotten to where he was by being intimidated by a cold stare. No matter how good at it Neji might be, he was still nothing compared to Snape. Harry met the boy glare for glare, which seemed to annoy the young Hyuuga inordinately. Neji’s eyes seemed to bulge, and the veins of his face distended around them. While this was intimidating itself, the way Neji was gritting his teeth detracted somewhat from his projected detachment, and Harry allowed himself a smirk at getting under the arrogant boy’s skin by doing nothing more than meeting his eye.

“What is it you’re hiding under your hitai-ite?” Neji demanded suddenly. “Are you cursed like me?”

Harry blinked. That was…not at all the question he had been expecting. “Cursed?” he asked uncertainly.

Still glaring at Harry, Neji lifted his own hitai-ite long enough to show Harry what looked like a vivid green tattoo across his forehead. 

“This Caged Bird Seal was branded on me at the age of four by my own uncle, to subjugate me to Hinata-ojou-sama and the Main Family line,” Neji spat. “Such is my fate.”

Unconsciously, Harry’s translation charm rendered ‘ojou’ into ‘noblewoman, usually a young lady’. Neji’s words were extremely deferential, but his tone seemed derisive. And what did he mean by Main Family? Perhaps, if clans worked like the aristocracy in Britain, it meant that Neji was not in the line of succession? That might explain his resentment. Harry glanced at Hinata, but she had covered her eyes when the seal was revealed.

“Now,” said Neji, and Harry’s eyes snapped back to him. “I can see that you also cover a mark with your hitai-ite. Is it a curse mark like mine? Are you, too, shackled to your fate?”

About to tell Neji that it was none of his business, Harry caught Hinata looking at him too. Well, though he preferred to keep the scar covered these days so people in Konoha wouldn’t gawp like passersby back home, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been used to people staring at it, and Hinata had been kind to him. She, at least, deserved to see it. So, he too drew up his hitai-ite and revealed the lightning-bolt shaped scar that marked him as The Boy Who Lived.

“I got this when I was a year old,” Harry explained coldly. “An evil wizard broke into my house and murdered my parents. When he tried to kill me, the curse backfired and destroyed his body instead, and left this scar on me. I’ve fought him off in some form three times since then; most recently last month, when he regained his body and his full powers.”

Both Hyuugas were staring at him now, and Neji’s eyes had returned to normal. He looked stunned. Harry let his forehead protector drop back over his scar and continued, “Maybe you know what it’s like to feel resented by your family, but did they ever try to crush out of you the very thing that makes you special? You’re plainly a shinobi, so I’d guess not. If my aunt and uncle had their way, I’d never have known anything about my parents or my heritage.” Harry scowled. “I don’t believe in fate. Even prophecies have a chance of not coming true.”

At his last words, the fury returned to Neji’s face, and he snarled, “If that is what you think, then perhaps it is my fate to prove you wrong.” He turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving Harry alone with Hinata again.

Harry turned to her. Hinata opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Harry bowed his head. “I’m sorry for speaking to your family member like that,” he said quietly.

“No!” Hinata hissed. Harry looked up, startled at the ferocity of her reply, even as her voice shook slightly. “I f-feel responsible for much of Neji-nii-san’s suffering. He is a genius of our clan’s hiden techniques and our Byakugan, yet I was born into his rightful place in the family. Now, even my position as the family’s heir is to be w-withdrawn in favor of my sister Hanabi. When she g-graduates from the Academy, I will be marked just as my cousin is, and integrated into the Branch Family as well.”

Harry stared. “What…is that mark?”

“It is a cursed seal, as Neji said,” she whispered. “It seals the Byakugan upon the bearer’s death, so that its secrets cannot be lost to the village’s enemies.” Her voice became quieter still, so that Harry had to strain to hear her. “It also…allows a member of the main family to…to cause the bearer pain, to enforce obedience.”

“What?” Harry gasped. He couldn’t believe that the Sandaime, kindly old man as he was, would allow such a thing. If it weren’t for the Dursleys, he didn’t think he could imagine a family being so…cruel. 

“I have never done it, Harry-san!” Hinata insisted. “It is all I can do now to share in Neji-nii-san’s pain. If I _were_ to become the clan head, I…I would do away with the practice entirely!” Her eyes were every bit as fierce as her words, and Harry felt his numb disbelief washed away. Hinata’s eyes, blank though they were, told the real story. She cared—truly cared—about her nii-san, empathising with his suffering. Just like Harry—and, he suspected, just like Naruto—she knew how it felt to be rejected by everybody.

He supposed they all coped differently, though. Naruto was brash and loud, constantly pulling pranks to ensure that people gave him attention on his terms when they wouldn’t do so normally. Hinata was cripplingly shy and seemed self-hating at times,attempting to avoid notice whenever possible and berating herself constantly for “not being good enough”. Harry himself was between the two extremes: he hated the limelight his fame often gave him, but was eager to prove himself on the Quidditch field and in the duelling arena by his own talents. 

Harry could find no words, so he simply laid his hand on Hinata’s shoulder. She blinked, but seemed to understand. “Please do not mention this meeting to anyone,” she asked him. “The full truth of the Caged Bird Seal is not widely known even in the village. Announcing it will only bring shame to my family, and no help to those imprisoned by it.”

Harry nodded and stood to go, testing the sturdiness of the trellis he was about to climb—he didn’t think he could muster the chakra to wall-walk again. He would have left by the regular means, but didn’t much feel like wandering through the Hyuuga compound. Besides, the occlumency book was still in the alleyway, and he needed to retrieve it before someone noticed it.

“It was great to see you today,” said Harry. “Genma-sensei implied that we might do some training with other teams soon, so maybe we’ll see each other this week?”

“I would like that,” said Hinata, a real smile crossing her face. “You may visit anytime you wish, if you will promise to use the front gate from now on, Harry-kun.”

Harry grinned back. “Sounds good to me,” he said as he hoisted himself to the top of the wall. Looking down, he saw the occlumency book lay undisturbed where he had dropped it. “See you, Hinata-chan.” 

She waved, and Harry dropped into the alley. He picked up the book and made his way back onto the main street. Before he had even walked a block, though, he heard a shout behind him.

“Yosh! I am passing on your left!”

* * *

“Forgive me, my Lord, but every indication is that Potter has not returned to his relations as expected.” The words came grudgingly, reluctantly; the speaker unwilling to look directly at his addressee for fear of being tortured as a bearer of bad news.

Lord Voldemort’s high voice grated on the ears of everyone present. “That mudblood-lover Dumbledore always sends him there; there where not even I may touch him and where my faithful Death Eaters cannot reach him. Yet you say he has not returned? Where else would he go?”

“I do not know, my Lord,” said Severus Snape, his black robes pooled around him where he knelt on the cold ground, his greasy hair hanging around his face. “Potter remained in the Hospital Wing for several days following the eve of your return. He attended the End-of-Term Feast as usual. He was seen leaving the Great Hall in the company of the youngest Weasley boy and the mudblood girl Granger. From all I can discern, no one saw them after that occasion.”

“Where, then, did they go, Severus?” Voldemort demanded. “How did they leave the castle unseen?”

“Again, my Lord, I must crave your pardon; I know not. While Potter does have an invisibility cloak and extensive knowledge of the castle’s hidden passageways thanks to his filthy father, there is no indication that any of them left the Hogwarts grounds by any means. As I am sure you are aware, my Lord, the wards on the castle are such that nobody could fly out, or apparate, or otherwise leave the grounds by stealth without using one of the established passages. I have personally inspected each of those, and none has been used recently. Potter could not have left by Portkey or Floo without the Department of Magical Transport being aware, and your own agents there have revealed nothing. He did not board the Hogwarts Express; neither his relations nor the mudblood’s were seen on Platform 9¾, and the Weasleys showed no concern over their youngest son’s absence. The Headmaster is too accomplished an occlumens for me to discover anything from him by legilimency, and not even the students’ own Head of House knows where they have gone.”

“Very well, Severus,” said Voldemort silkily. Snape flinched a little, plainly expecting to be punished for bringing poor information, but Voldemort merely turned his back on Snape and spoke on. “It seems that Potter has well and truly eluded me for the present. But never mind; our immediate goals do not require Potter’s presence.”

“As you command, my Lord.”

* * *

“Orochimaru-sama, there are strangers in Konoha.” The cloaked figure spoke with some apprehension, knowing that his information was poor.

“Strangers, Kabuto?” questioned a man sitting in a thronelike chair carved with snakes, which looked very out of place in the relatively modern medical laboratory.

The man in the cloak straightened up, sweeping his hood back with his left hand to reveal grey hair despite his youthful face, and carefully pushing his round glasses up the bridge of his nose with his other hand.

“Foreigners,” Kabuto clarified. “Three of them; two male, one female. They are young, no older than fourteen, and were escorted from the Academy to the Hokage’s private residence perhaps a week past. The following day, they found new lodgings, purchased ninja gear, and began training as shinobi under one Shiranui Genma. From all I can discern, no one saw them before that occasion. Nobody seems to know where they came from, but they were acknowledged as honored guests by the Sandaime. As I am sure you are aware, the village is protected from entrance by air, overground, and underground. These protections are such that nobody can enter by stealth without using one of the established boltholes. I have personally inspected each of those, and none has been used recently except by me. Neither the public nor private ANBU of the Hokage’s Guard Platoon saw them arrive, and our old friends in Root seem just as baffled as anyone.”

“Spies, perhaps? There have been younger prodigies, and if they are loyal to Konoha it could upset our timetable,” hissed Orochimaru.

“I think not, Orochimaru-sama,” Kabuto insisted. “I managed to tail them during a day’s training—by all appearances, they have never so much has channeled their chakra before, though all three were perfectly capable of learning. They _are_ improving at a remarkable pace, but the same can be said of some of our other interests in Konoha.”

Orochimaru seemed to ponder this, staring intently at a test tube he held over a small flame. “Say on.”

“All that is really of note is that they have apparently struck friendships with both the Kyuubi’s container and with the last Uchiha.”

“Very well, Kabuto. I shall ponder what you have told me. However, favored by the Sandaime though they may be, our goals will not be greatly affected by the presence of a few more Leaf genin, whatever their origin. Return to your work and continue to prepare—I think that the Chunin Exams will be the time for us to strike.”

“As you command, Orochimaru-sama.”

* * *

“Do you mean to tell me it has been nigh on a week, and we still know nothing of who they truly are or why they are here?” asked the bandaged old man, smacking his cane on the floor.

“My humblest apologies, Danzo-sama,” said the Root ANBU kneeling before him, his flat voice deadened still further behind his mask. “None of our men have the Sandaime’s confidence, and the strangers are being guarded by ANBU’s own elite. No evidence has been reported from any channel to suggest that the newcomers are anything other than what the Sandaime stated.”

“Then perhaps it is so,” Danzo said, raising a hand to scratch at his bandaged right eye. “However, I will want regular reports on their progress, most especially if one of them has a ‘sudden breakthrough’ or ‘hidden talent’.”

“As you command, Danzo-sama.”

* * *

“Konoha has guests, Tsuchikage-sama.” The woman swept her long, bleached bangs back from her face as she spoke, and the candlelight glinted off the rocks engraved on her hitai-ite.

The tiny old man glared down at the speaker from his perch behind his desk. “Am I supposed to care?” he snapped.

“You asked to be informed of any irregularities reported by our spies in the Land of Fire, Tsuchikage-sama. These guests are plainly foreigners; no one recognises them by sight or description, their accents do not sound like any known dialect within the Elemental Nations, and they have begun training as shinobi of the Leaf.”

“They are new recruits?”

“Yes, Tsuchikage-sama; they have spent nigh on a week merely learning to concentrate their chakra.”

The Tsuchikage continued to glare. Were she anyone else, he might have simply killed her for wasting his time. As it was, her kekkei genkai was powerful enough—and more to the point, unique in Iwagakure, seeing as she had been abducted from Suna at a young age—that he supposed she could count herself safe from his wrath this time.

“Then they are of no consequence. Return to your post and report any further irregularities, Maratsuchi.”

“As you command, Tsuchikage-sama.”

* * *

“Regrettably, our presence within Konoha is not what it could be, but it is difficult to maintain such ties when our…numbers are so…reduced, Mizukage-sama.” The kneeling man spoke deferentially, and chose his words with apparent care.

“No, you have done well,” said a slight figure dressed in blue and white robes. “By all means, continue your surveillance; you even have my leave to withdraw some forces from our current focus. Purging the curse of the kekkei genkai is a priority, but we mustn’t allow ourselves to become ignorant of threats from without, simply because we are focused on threats from within. A shinobi must remain aware, always.”

“As you say, Mizukage-sama.”

“And if you should see an opportunity to gain something of value,” the Yondaime Mizukage added in his quiet voice, leaning forward over his desk. “Do not hesitate to use any means to seize it. I will authorise you to call on Kushimaru-kun and Jinpachi-kun.”

The kneeling man shivered at the Mizukage’s casual air in referring to two of the most dangerous and terrifying ninjas in Kirigakure—the last two loyal members of the fearsome Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.

“At present they are tracking their rogue brethren, Zabuza and Kisame,” explained the Mizukage, writing on a scroll. “If your goal should be suddenly vulnerable, or if you should find information pertaining to their targets, contact them with this.” 

He rolled up the scroll, sealed it with a simple jutsu, and threw it to the kneeling man, who caught it. Once, he might have expected to be handed the scroll directly, but Midorikatabami Yagura had grown paranoid after the rogues from the Seven Swordsmen had each tried to assassinate him. Of course, most had been leery of getting too close to him even before then, for fear of the rumoured instability caused by his…prisoner. Still, orders were orders.

“As you command, Mizukage-sama,” he barked, and left at once.

Unnoticed by Yagura, who was programmed to see and hear nothing out of the ordinary, the intrigued masked man in the shadows gave a soft chuckle.

* * *

Many miles away, near the joint border between the Land of Fire, the smaller Land of Bears, and the political newcomer Land of Sound, a man stood staring out toward the latter’s low marshes. 

He was not tall, but impressively broad and well-built without seeming ponderous. He wore sturdy pants, and bandages around his torso which left his shoulders bare, revealing the character for “Fire” tattooed on his right shoulder, and “Earth” on his left. Apparently coming to a decision, he swept on a long dun-coloured jacket with the characters for “wandering bear” splashed across it, then strapped to his back a naginata with an unusually wide blade. His long hair was drawn back from his face in a loose tail, with a ninja’s hitai-ite across his forehead, bearing the kanji for “Luck”—signifying his chosen allegiance.

He knocked his booted feet against the tree beside him for a moment, scowling. Anyone who saw him at that moment would have assumed that the look meant he wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Anyone who actually knew him would have said that he always looked like that…and that the assumption was accurate. Still, there was work to be done, and the Toad Sage wasn’t going to track himself down.

The man studied the countryside a short while longer, decided that there was no sign of civilisation nearby, and promptly leapt into the trees, deciding to take the high route along the border of the Land of Fire before cutting into the Land of Sound near the Valley of the End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I’m taking some liberties with my mental timeline of preliminary genin training; I want the Hogwarts Three to be competent enough to actually be called “genin” and starting to do real D-rank missions BEFORE the time when Naruto gets fed up with said D-rank missions and demands something higher (which leads Team 7 into the Land of Waves arc). Team 9 here will NOT be involved in the Land of Waves.
> 
> Wikipedia tells me that what my own limited martial arts training taught me is called a “bokken”, is more commonly called a “bokutō” in Japan, so that’s the word I used here. I know that shinai (practice swords made of bundled bamboo slats that hurt a lot less) are more commonly used for early training and sparring, but Genma is skipping that because he’s hardcore and wants to motivate Ron to improve quickly. It’s a calculated decision, not ignorance or carelessness on his part or mine.
> 
> The books Hermione is reading are _Kōbōjutsu_ by Koma Tsurin—which is a layered reference—and _Seigi no michi_ by Namikaze Minato. I confess I didn’t bother titling the history book; it’s probably something stodgy like _History of the Hidden Villages_ or something. Hermione’s suppositions about Minato and Kushina may be a little off, but she’s working with the information she has available. Speaking of which, I have apparently established that Genma is aware of exactly who Naruto is, which is _apparently somehow secret even from most of the jonin?_ I’m sorry if this seems like I’m bashing the Third Hokage but HOW DID HE EXPECT THAT STUPID PLAN TO WORK? AND _HOW DID IT?_
> 
> I’d been looking forward to Harry and Neji meeting for a long time…before I remembered that in this timeline, Harry doesn’t know the prophecy! So yeah, that had to be rewritten a little. I think it still works, but if the scene feels awkward, that’s probably why.
> 
> And finally, we've gotten to check in with some of the potential villains of this picture. (I'm not sure whether Yagura's family name should traditionally be "Aoikatabami", since Japanese didn't traditionally distinguish between blue and green.) We also saw someone else. I wonder who it could be. Oh, and a naginata is like a spear, but with a sword-like blade instead of just a spearhead. Just in case anyone doesn’t know that.


	8. Stylistic Differences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Hogwarts Trio get shuffled off on other sensei for a week before Genma decides to answer their questions.

The week that followed before Hermione was able to talk privately with Genma was by turns grueling, satisfying, challenging, and stressful. She had shared her revelation with Harry and Ron when Genma had not reappeared Sunday evening, instead leaving Ron to return on his own after washing his laundry.

“Did you even invite him to dinner, Ron?” Hermione had cried.

“Yes!” Ron snapped back. Visibly calming himself, he continued, “He just smirked at me and said he’d seen quite enough of us this week, and he didn’t fancy giving up his own _plans_ for the evening, did-I-know-what-he-means.” Ron smirked himself, a passable imitation of their teacher. “Bet it’s a date.”

Hermione wasn’t listening, however, and didn’t stop pacing all around Harry’s apartment.

“What’s the matter?” Harry asked her.

“Look at this picture,” she said instead, and held up the book she was carrying around with her. “Who does it look like?”

Harry, who had been cleaning his glasses, saw nothing but a blur. He hastened to put them back on. Ron, though, had crossed the room to stare at the photograph on the inside-back cover.

“He looks like that bloke we met on our shopping trip, who lives downstairs,” he said slowly. “The loudmouthed blond.”

“Naruto,” Harry supplied, crossing the room to look at the photo for himself. The man in the book did indeed look how he imagined Naruto might in about ten years. “Who is this?” he asked Hermione.

In answer, Hermione turned the book over so they could read the author’s name. “Namikaze Minato”, Ron sounded out. He seemed to still be having some trouble interpreting the writing. “Yondaime Hokage.”

“The village’s former leader, who died thirteen years ago this October,” Hermione added.

“So why does he look like Naruto?” Ron asked. “The resemblance is a bit spooky, innit?”

“Well, I had an idea, but I was hoping to talk to Genma about it…” said Hermione, starting to pace again. “It’s just…well, who in the world do you look like most, Ron?”

“Bill, with his hair short,” said Ron at once. “Or my granddad, I guess. Mum always says I’ve got my Prewett uncles’ nose, though.”

“And what do all those people have in common?” she asked pointedly. Ron looked confused, and Hermione huffed in exasperation and tried again. “Who are people always saying that Harry reminds them of?”

“My dad…” Harry answered. He pulled the book from Hermione’s fingers and laid it on the table, open to the picture of Namikaze Minato. “I’ve seen pictures. I look just like my dad.”

“You mean–” Ron started to say, but Hermione interrupted him.

“It’s just a theory!” Hermione hurried to say. “And I don’t want to say anything to Naruto, because if by chance I’m right, I don’t think he knows this.”

“Why do you say that?” Harry asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Oh, honestly, you’ve met him, haven’t you? He’s shouted about becoming Hokage nearly every day since we’ve arrived, and we know from his classmates that he’s been doing it for years! Don’t you think he’d make a big deal of the fact that his father had been Hokage?”

“Well, maybe he wasn’t,” said Ron. “Why would the son of the former village leader live in a dumpy apartment like this one?”

“There’s something else, too…” Harry said, almost to himself. “Hinata told me most of the village seems to hate Naruto, but she didn’t know why. And remember, he came shopping with us because he got thrown out of a shop and accused of theft. But Genma brought him with us, and I don’t think he would have if Naruto was actually shoplifting.”

“I wonder if there’s a different reason for that?” said Hermione. “I mean, according to sensei, Naruto is always pulling pranks around the village. Maybe he’s hurt some people or damaged property?”

“Nothing that couldn’t be repaired,” Ron argued. “Sensei would have warned us if he thought Naruto was dangerous or we needed to stay away from him. Besides, Fred and George have been playing pranks for years, and it makes them _more_ popular, even when they lose points.”

“Well, it has to be something to with him directly,” Hermione insisted. “Even if his mother, whoever she was, had turned out to be some sort of criminal, I don’t think people would take it out on her child like that. Especially if he was also the Hokage’s son.”

“Sensei knows about this, too, whatever the secret is,” said Harry suddenly. “That same day he came shopping with us, Naruto mumbled something about the reason he got thrown out, and Genma just told him to come along with us.”

“So whatever the secret, or secrets, really are…we’ve got to find out from Genma as soon as we’re alone,” Ron summarized. “As long as there’s nobody around.”

Agreeing that they would ask Genma during training the following day, the three bid each other good night. Questions or no questions, Genma would not put up with them being late to training in the morning.

* * *

Genma, who was at that moment stuck with chakra to the wall outside Harry’s open window, smirked to himself as he leapt away. So, they wanted to question him, did they? Well…maybe if they were good little students this week, he’d try to get permission from Hokage-sama.

His smirk broadened. Time to move up his timetable. 

He was meeting Kurenai for dinner—and it was not a date, as Ron-kun had supposed. Though, it was always possible he’d meet some sweet little thing at the bar after Kurenai had left…a few dances _was_ usually enough to get him an invitation up for a drink…

What had he just been thinking about? Right, Kurenai. He would ask her to pass the message on to Asuma. Kurenai could take next, which would give Genma enough time to convince or coerce Kakashi. Perfect.

* * *

Early the next morning, the Hogwarts Three met up promptly outside their doors and jogged together out to training ground seventeen. Genma wasn’t there, but there was a scrap of paper pinned to the single standing wall with a senbon. Ron pulled it down, squinted at it with a grimace, then passed it to Hermione, who read it aloud.

“Hung over. Go to Training Ground Twenty-Four and train with Squad Ten. Study their synergy and have Asuma tell you the history of the Twelve Guardian Ninja. Genma. Honestly,” Hermione groaned. “I guess we’ll have to ask him later. Do either of you know where training ground twenty-four is?”

Ron shook his head, but Harry said, “Yeah, I passed it on Saturday. We should warm up first, though.”

They went through their stretches, yoga, and calisthenics, then Harry led the other two toward training ground twenty-four at a run, in lieu of their usual laps around training ground seventeen. When they arrived, they found Asuma sitting under a tree with a hand-rolled cigarette, casually blowing rings of smoke one through another.

He glanced up as they came to a halt, and the three of them bowed. Hermione held up the note. “Asuma-san, we were told—”

But he cut her off with a wave of his hand. “Yes, I know,” he said gruffly. “And ‘Asuma-sensei’ will do while we’re training. Squad Ten begins the morning with meditation practice, but they aren’t due here for another twenty minutes. Have the three of you meditated properly before?” They all shook their heads. “Then you might want a head start. Though, if what Genma tells me about you three is true, you may pick it up faster than my students.” He took a long drag on his cigarette, and blew the smoke out in a long stream, which twisted around on itself in the air to form the shape of the symbol of the Land of Fire. Then it ignited, burned for a flash, and was gone.

All three of them stared at him.

“Meditation allows for more precise chakra control,” Asuma said. “I understand Genma has you all working on focusing chakra coarsely within the body; to the forehead or feet, for instance. Meditation will let you focus finely, and learn to control the chakra in your immediate vicinity even outside your body. Every living thing has chakra—to control your chakra completely, you must be as one with everything around you. To do this, you must first think of nothing, and then learn not to think.”

With a final drag, Asuma finished his cigarette. He passed a hand across his mouth, and when they saw his lips again the cigarette was simply gone. “Sit,” he commanded, the voice of a monk commanding his acolytes. They sat, crossing their legs and settling as comfortably as they could. “Now, shut your eyes and clear your minds.” All three of them looked at each other, confused, but dutifully shut their eyes and went about clearing out extraneous thoughts. Genma had gone over the basics of meditation, but thinking of nothing was far easier said than done.

After a few minutes had passed, Asuma abruptly asked, “Hermione, what is on your mind?”

Startled, but apparently unable to resist answering a direct question from a teacher, she stammered, “A secret that I think I may have uncovered.”

Asuma nodded and sent them back to their meditation with no further questions, nor any explanation. After another few minutes, when they had all begun to be distracted again, he asked, “Ron, what is on your mind?”

“The movement of the silver general in shogi,” Ron mumbled.

Again, Asuma merely nodded and fell silent, returning them to a peaceful meditation. As expected, Harry was next. “Harry, what is on your mind?”

“Voldemort killing Cedric,” said Harry quietly. “After I told Cedric to take the Triwizard Cup with me; after I brought him to that graveyard, to his death.”

Asuma gave the same knowing nod in response. “Very well. Now, to each of you I pose a question: what are you?”

“We’re wizards,” Hermione answered. “And a witch. We’re training to be shinobi.”

“Before either of those things, what are you?” Asuma clarified.

“Erm, English?” Ron suggested.

“Students,” was Harry’s input.

“Before any of that,” Asuma intoned, the voice of the elder monk ringing, “you are people. As infants, you were enlightened, but you lacked the capacity to understand. In gaining the ability to understand, the enlightenment was disrupted; you lost clarity when you learned to think. You must learn once more to not think—to know without thinking.”

“But how can we know something without thinking about it?” Hermione asked. “That’s impossible!”

“Do you think about each breath you take?” Asuma countered. “Do you ponder each beat of your heart?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Do the birds consider each breath of wind? Do the trees contemplate the colour of the sky?”

“No,” said Hermione testily. “But—”

“Do the sun and moon wonder at each others’ movements?”

Hermione was now audibly grinding her teeth. “No, but—”

“The fishing net exists because of the fish, yes? Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the net. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. So do words exist because of their meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.”

Hermione looked nearly apoplectic. “You are not making any sense!”

Asuma tilted his head and replied, “You are not meditating.” Recognizing the criticism, Hermione shut her eyes. She took a deep breath and visibly calmed herself.

“Now,” Asuma continued. “I will ask you another question to ponder as you meditate. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

“Well, obviously it does!” Hermione snapped at once. “Why shouldn’t it?”

“Wrong answer,” said Asuma, shaking his head. “You may try again shortly.” He shut his eyes and gestured for them to return to their meditation. Hermione groaned exasperatedly, but did as she was told.

After a moment, Harry said, “Well, the answer can’t be ‘no’, can it? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“That is also the wrong answer,” said Asuma. “And since this is your first attempt, I will give you a clue. You are trying to answer this like a question, but it is a kōan with no answer; instead, think about what the question _means_.”

There was another long silence as they all considered it. At length, Ron spoke up, though he had turned to address Hermione. “If ‘Yes’ is wrong and ‘No’ is wrong, then we can’t have any idea about the sound,” he said slowly. “All we know is that there’s a tree on the ground.”

“Very good,” said Asuma. The three Hogwarts students all looked at him, confused, and he continued, “You were finally on the right track to the important answer. We cannot know if the tree made a sound when it fell, we know only that it has fallen.” He made a vague gesture with his hand, and explained, “There is no ‘right’ answer to this question; because it is a kōan—it is intended to be paradoxical. It can be argued for years from either perspective, yes or no. But to the Ninja there is at least one other answer: It matters not at all whether the tree makes a sound or not, because what is important is that it has fallen. Do you understand?”

“So…it’s like a riddle?” Hermione asked.

Asuma shook his head. “Yes and no. Though both encourage careful examination of the premises of the question, and reading between the lines for understanding, there is still an important distinction: A riddle can be solved by application of logic—a kōan has no such answer. The contradiction is all. By meditating upon such a paradox, you can free your mind from the constraints of causality, and discover subtleties that you would never otherwise have noticed.”

“So then, the lesson is…” Harry trailed off, but Asuma was looking at him expectantly, so he plowed on. “The lesson is…that there is always more than meets the eye?”

Asuma gave him a real smile. “Are you ready to meditate?” he asked. 

Harry was confused, since they had already been meditating, but figured it was simply another of the bearlike man’s confusing lessons. Either way, Asuma’s tone made it clear he was expecting them to answer with words.

“Yes, sensei,” Harry responded, hearing his voice overlaid with Ron’s, Hermione’s…and three others’. Harry barely managed not to jump as he noticed Team 10 sitting quietly to his left. He had no idea when they had arrived, but all three of them were kneeling in what Genma had called a seiza position, sitting on their heels with their knees close together on the ground.

“Very well. Close your eyes and clear your minds,” Asuma instructed again. Harry expected Asuma to begin questioning them again, but instead, he continued speaking. “Picture in your mind’s eye a single flame, as great or as humble as you feel yourself. The flame is at your center; all other thoughts merely flit around the edges of the firelight.”

With that kind of instruction, so similar and yet so different from his laughable Divination lessons with the frankly ridiculous Professor Trelawney, Harry thought he could actually follow along with this description of his ‘Mind’s Eye’. Hopefully, he thought, this lesson would not end with a prediction of his premature death, as every Divination lesson this year had done.

“Let the flame burn brightly,” Asuma continued, his voice droning slightly, but oddly relaxing. “The flame is stronger than the other thoughts skittering through the shadows. Catch those thoughts one by one and push them into the flame. You will likely examine them briefly as they come into the light, but do not dwell upon them. Feed them into the fire and feel the void that they leave behind. Let the flame burn away all extraneous thoughts, until there is only the flame, and the void.

“From the void comes clarity. 

“From the void comes understanding beyond causation or reason. 

“From the void comes Oneness with all things.”

Then he fell silent, and Harry himself felt somewhat adrift. Asuma had made it clear that the purpose of mediation was not to actively think of anything, so Harry let himself float through the void. Any thoughts that came to him, he considered only briefly before passing them into the flame. 

Hermione’s theories about Naruto seemed more likely the more Harry thought about them. Flame. Void.

How odd it seemed, on one level, that Ron had been the one to discern the purpose behind the riddle earlier. And yet, not at all unexpected, if Harry was honest with himself. Flame. Void.

It was absurd that Dumbledore could even expect him to willingly vanish to the other side of the world, and learn what amounted to a completely different way of life, all in the space of a few months…and yet Dumbledore seemed unable to explain himself properly to a fourteen-year-old. Flame. Void.

Hyuuga Neji certainly seemed to have something to prove, but Harry didn’t know if he should concern himself with the concerns of one of Konoha’s noble clans. Flame. Void.

Meditating like this was extremely relaxing. Flame. Void.

Sasuke-san could definitely use some meditation time; it might help him calm down some. Of course, he seemed calm, even cold, most of the time, but the simple mention of ‘the Uchiha Incident’ would touch off a white-hot rage, and he would become unstable. Flame. Void.

“That will do for this morning,” said Asuma’s voice, from a long way away. “Rise, and let us spar.” 

Harry opened his eyes, which immediately began to water. He blinked rapidly, and glanced at his watch. Over an hour had passed while he was meditating, and his legs were a bit stiff from sitting still for so long, but his mind felt more settled than it had since the Third Task, and Voldemort’s rebirth in the graveyard of Little Hangleton.

Harry paired off with Chouji for sparring practice. He settled into a basic defensive stance and watched the other boy, then shifted to a block as Chouji threw a punch. Harry managed to direct the other boy’s momentum away from himself, then stepped inside Chouji’s guard and delivered a palm strike to his chest. Chouji nodded to acknowledge Harry’s point, and they returned to starting positions.Whatever else was happening, he, Harry, was getting stronger here in Konoha. Presumably that was Dumbledore’s intention, but perhaps even the Headmaster would be surprised at how much the three of them had changed. 

An exhausting day of sparring later, each of the six genin had fought all of the others, individually, in pairs, and as squads, _and_ had teamed up against Asuma himself. At first, they had each tried their hardest to simply land a hit, but Asuma knocked them back one by one until he simply leapt away and vanished, at which point Ino and Chouji had turned to their third squadmate.

“What do we do, Shika?”

Shikamaru glanced around at all of them, apparently sizing them up, then squatted down and put his fingertips together to form a circle with both hands. His eyes fluttered closed and his brow furrowed.

“Knowing Asuma, he’s probably in a tree nearby,” Shikamaru mumbled quietly. “Ino, you’ll need to get up to a solid branch and stay out of sight. Chouji and I will start sweeping the trees, and you three,” he inclined his head toward the Hogwarts students, “should stay on the ground and shadow us. We’ll try to flush him out that way. He’ll break through your line pretty easily—no offense—and he’s used to dodging my shadows, so we should be able to shepherd him back in this direction for Ino to catch.”

Ino and Chouji nodded and immediately did as they were told. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were too impressed by the quick assessment to be offended, and spread out quickly to begin searching in concert with Chouji and Shikamaru. Harry saw Hermione glancing at Shikamaru appraisingly, and grinned to himself.

Just as predicted, Asuma had been in a tree less than a hundred meters away, hidden against the trunk with a simple concealment jutsu that turned his skin the same colour as the bark. Chouji leapt at his hiding spot, and with a cry of “Baika no jutsu!”, the boy suddenly inflated like a balloon, expanding like Harry had hexed his Aunt Marge to do the previous year. Of course, that had been an outburst of accidental magic, whereas this was the Akimichi clan’s famous hiden ‘Multi-Size’ technique. Asuma was forced to dive out of the way. He landed between Harry and Ron, who rushed him at once. While not long ago they might have hesitated before attacking a teacher, Genma-sensei had pounded into their heads that if they didn’t fight their absolute hardest against the teachers, they would ever land a single hit. The big sensei twisted away from a slash of Ron’s sword, and used his momentum to fling him into Harry. With identical grunts of pain, both boys hit the ground.

As they pushed themselves to their feet, the dappled shadows on the ground seemed to suddenly darken, before they _stretched_ impossibly toward Asuma. This, then, was the Nara clan’s hiden Kagemane no jutsu, ‘Shadow Mimicry’. Asuma, extremely familiar with the techniques, leapt backward at once, landing in a clearing free of any shadows.

From off to their left, they heard a triumphant cry. “Ha! Shintenshin no jutsu!” As the three Hogwarts students rushed into the clearing, already understanding ‘Mind Transfer’, Asuma’s knees buckled and he fell to the ground. Chouji dashed to a tree at the edge of the clearing, and caught Ino’s body as it toppled off the branch she had been sitting on. The Hogwarts students tensed as Asuma started to push himself back to his feet, but found themselves unable to move as their shadows pooled beneath them, and shot out to meet with Asuma’s.

“Checkmate,” came Shikamaru’s quiet voice from just behind Harry. Asuma smiled, and the shadow binding him retracted. Harry’s, Ron’s, and Hermione’s own shadows all separated, and they were free to move again. 

As the students gathered around their sensei once more, Ron turned to Shikamaru and said what Harry and Hermione were thinking. “That was seriously impressive.”

Shikamaru just shrugged. “Having to catch Asuma-sensei is a real drag, but he just assigns something even more troublesome if he thinks we’re not trying hard enough.”

Asuma, meanwhile, was rolling a new cigarette. “You all did well today, so here are my critiques. Chouji-kun, you’re still moving too slowly in the trees, and your branch-hopping stealth needs work. Ino-chan, if you can’t maintain enough chakra control to stick to a tree during Shintenshin, then don’t do it from above the ground. Shikamaru-kun, you sent out teammates as bait simply because you don’t know them well. An enemy nin would have simply cut them down, so I need to know that you won’t do that in a combat situation.”

Shikamaru let out a long sigh. “The only reason I didn’t tell them to stay back and support Ino is _because_ I knew you wouldn’t kill them. They wouldn’t have been on the front lines in any plan I made against an enemy nin.”

Asuma grunted in acknowledgement. “As for the the three of you, you did very well for your first day meditating. I have been told to pass along an instruction from your sensei that you add daily meditation to your evening routines. Mornings are optional. I will meet you back here in an hour.” Asuma struck a small flame in his cupped hand and lit his cigarette, but he didn’t drop a match or reach into his pocket to put away a lighter. He took a long drag, then exhaled the smoke in a thin stream, which curled around him like a ribbon. After a moment, it simply floated away like any smoke, but Asuma himself was nowhere to be seen.

Their training after lunch was uneventful, and mainly a review of the basic academy-level ninjutsu that was new to the Hogwarts students, primarily the simple clone jutsu which they had seen in Dumbledore’s office, and a new technique called Henge no jutsu, which they interpreted as ‘Transformation’ or ‘Change’—a tricky but useful ability that allowed the user to change their physical appearance. Like the clones, the Henge was not solid, but disguising one’s appearance was crucial for a ninja. Finally, there was Kawarimi no jutsu, which the three English genin soon understood to mean ‘body replacement’ or ‘substitution’, which let the user quickly switch places with something else, usually an inanimate object to absorb an attack.

As the sun went down, Asuma released them with a final question to ponder during their meditation that night:

“Hermione, what is the sound of one hand clapping?”

Hermione, her head still full of the possibilities opened by their new range of jutsu, said without thinking, “You can't clap with one hand…”

“Wrong answer,” said Asuma with a smile.

Hermione groaned and fled the training ground. Harry and Ron grinned at each other and followed her home at a more sedate pace.

* * *

“Absolutely not, Genma,” snapped the Hokage. “Our own genin have no inkling of such a secret; it cannot be shared with foreigners!”

* * *

Tuesday began very like Monday—the only differences were that this time there were two senbon pinning the note to the wall in their training ground, Genma’s excuse was that he was feeling ill, and the note instructed them to join Squad Eight in Training Ground Nineteen.

Training ground nineteen was a variable-terrain space, almost due South of the village center. The sensei, Kurenai, was nowhere to be seen, but two of her genin were already there: Hyuuga Hinata, and the tall boy with the trench coat and sunglasses who Harry had noticed in Iruka’s classroom, Aburame Shino.

The Hogwarts Trio knew now from Genma’s lectures that the Aburame clan was known for using various types of insects in their work, which apparently nested within their very bodies. Genma had no clues as to how such a thing was possible, as these secrets were guarded especially jealously, even for hiden jutsu. The Aburame were also one of Konoha’s noble clans, along with the Akimichi, the Hyuuga, and the Uchiha. On the other hand, Genma had added in an undertone, unlike the latter two, the Aburame and Akimichi preferred quiet dignity to arrogant hauteur.

Harry bowed carefully to Shino as they arrived, felt rather than saw Ron and Hermione imitate him, and received a bow from the quiet boy in return. Ron and Hermione also bowed to Hinata, whom Harry instead greeted with a smile.

Shino was apparently even less talkative than Hinata. Having greeted the newcomers, he returned to examining a colony of ants trooping through the grass near the trees that grew around the perimeter of the training ground. Hinata blushed a little at being relegated to the center of attention, but said nonetheless, “Ron-san, Hermione-san, Harry-san. It is good to see you all.”

“Hello, Hinata-san,” said Hermione kindly. “Where is your third squadmate?”

“Kiba-kun is always late,” said a woman’s voice. All of them jerked around. Yuuhi Kurenai stood at the edge of the forest, her red eyes glinting. Smiling at their startlement, she added, “It’s a shame, too, because he’s the only one who would have noticed me arrive. Once he’s here, we’ll be working on situational awareness. While my Team Eight is specialized as a tracking and reconnaissance unit, I think all of you could stand to be a bit more familiar with your surroundings at all times.”

Harry grinned. “Genma’s Rule Number Six,” he recited. “Always be aware of your surroundings.” Kurenai gave him an approving smile.

“Yes, indeed,” she said. “At its most basic, situational awareness means knowing everything that is around you. That includes the terrain, the climate, and—” she paused for a moment as Inuzuka Kiba charged up to the group, panting and out of breath. “—the people,” she finished. Waving away Kiba’s excuses, Kurenai continued her lecture.

“Situational awareness involves a combination of careful observation and interpretation of data. You must learn to use all your senses, and all special abilities available to you, to intimately know your surroundings. Then, if any part of that changes, you can notice it without scrambling to figure out what seems different.” All the students nodded.

Kurenai spread her arms in an expansive gesture. “The senses are your tools, and you must train them to their peak ability” she said. “Your eyes, to take in the available paths for movement, the viable cover, and the available exits. Your ears, to filter out unimportant data and find who around you is harmless, who is important, and who is dangerous. Your nose, as Kiba knows well, can help distinguish friend from foe almost unerringly, and tell you who has been where recently. Your fingers and feet can give you a clue, through vibrations in the ground, how many enemies are nearby. Your chakra sense, even if you aren’t gifted with the range or skill of a Sensor-type ninja, can still tell you who around you has channeled chakra before and who has not, and eventually give you an estimate of how much raw chakra someone has available.”

Following their lecture was a spirited game of ninja hide-and-seek, during which Harry, Ron, and Hermione were thoroughly trounced. Kurenai immediately began giving her own team handicaps, restricting the use of Hinata’s Byakugan, Shino’s kikai insects, and Kiba’s ninja hound Akamaru. Akamaru, none too happy at being left out, was instead moved to the hiding team on every round, to help the puppy master the basics of stealth and concealment.

By the end of the day, all of them were sweaty, tired, covered in dirt, leaves, and bark, and absolutely having the time of their lives. After taking another few minutes to frolic with Akamaru, the Hogwarts Three headed to Hermione’s apartment for a short history session and more practice on the Henge and Bunshin no jutsu—they all needed to practice Kawarimi quite a lot too, but there wasn’t much space for it indoors.

* * *

“Absolutely not, Genma,” snapped the Hokage. “Our own most elite forces have no inkling of such a secret; it cannot be shared with genin!”

* * *

On Wednesday, there were three senbon holding up the note explaining that Genma was on a mission, and that they should accompany squad seven to training ground three. He added that rather than meeting in the training ground, the genin tended to congregate at the nearby bridge over the canal, to wait for Kakashi.

When Genma’s students arrived at the bridge, they found Sakura already waiting. They had barely exchanged greetings when Sasuke appeared, his hands deep in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. The moment the boy came into view, his eyes snapped up, apparently having noticed there were too many people on the bridge. When he saw Harry, his mouth twitched into a small smile, though he was too far away for any of them to see it. By the time he arrived, his face was composed again. He inclined his head to Harry, then leaned against the railing. Looking very much like she would prefer to be much closer to Sasuke, Sakura flopped down on the bridge too, as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

“Erm, where is Naruto-san?” Hermione asked.

Sasuke scoffed. “Hmph. Loser won’t be here for at least half an hour.”

“Why not?” Ron asked.

Sakura sighed. “Because Kakashi-sensei won’t arrive for at least three.”

The three older students stared at Sakura for a moment.. Then, apparently taking the pink-haired girl at her word, Ron laid down on the bridge, and pulled his bandanna down over his eyes, content to nap until he needed to get up. Harry expected Hermione to complain, but admittedly Ron had gotten much better at awakening quickly. It seemed she was too distracted, however.

“Why does Kakashi arrive so late?” she asked instead.

“His answer is never the same two days running,” Sakura snorted. “What was it yesterday, Sasuke-kun? ‘Getting a cat out of a tree’?”

“On Monday he was ‘helping his landlady carry out her garbage’,” Sasuke deadpanned. “I told you he was useless,” he added to Harry.

Harry just smiled. “Who else has a sharingan?” he replied.

Hermione pressed her fingers over her eyes. “Oh, please don’t,” she moaned. “You said that in the same tone as Asuma-sensei’s stupid questions.” 

Harry just laughed. Hermione still hadn’t got the hang of meditation. “So you still haven’t figured out the sound of one hand clapping, Hermione?”

“Ano…” said Sakura, trying to follow the older students’ conversation. “You can’t make a clapping sound with just one hand.”

“That’s what I said,” Hermione told the confused girl. “But Asuma-sensei told us that wasn’t the answer. It’s some kind of riddle that’s supposed to ‘broaden our minds.’” She sketched air quotes around the last three words.

Harry glanced at Sasuke out of the corner of his eye, and added, “The only answer any of us came up with that Asuma-sensei liked was Ron’s suggestion that the sound it made was ‘cl’, since you needed the other hand to make the ‘ap’.” Sasuke’s tiny smirk came and went almost instantly.

“He still said it wasn’t the right answer,” Ron grunted from where he lay. “Besides, it’s not a riddle, Hermione, it’s just something you’re supposed to think about to help you meditate. There is no real answer.”

Before Hermione could answer, Sasuke raised his voice and called out, “It’s impressive that you managed to wake up early, but stop trying to sneak up on our honoured guests, Loser.”

“Oi! Don’t give me away like that!” The shout came from a rooftop nearby, and Naruto’s blond head popped up, scowling. He hopped nimbly down the twenty or so feet and came to join them, grinning at Harry, Ron, and Hermione. No sooner had he arrived did Sakura smack him on the head, and though crocodile tears seemed to pour down the blond’s whiskered cheeks, Harry thought it was probably one of the softer blows he had seen Naruto endure from his pink-haired crush. 

“I don’t even know why you bothered, idiot. You know Kakashi-sensei won’t be here for hours,” Sasuke snapped.

Naruto did not reply, except to make a face at Sasuke. Instead, he flung himself down on the bridge next to Ron, though he didn’t seem to be making any effort to go to sleep. Instead, he stared at the clouds, humming a tune that Harry had heard from Shikamaru on Monday.

They passed the next few hours amicably enough, getting to know one another better. It spoke well of their training, though, that they all stiffened and looked around before a small plume of smoke beside the bridge signalled Kakashi’s arrival. “Yo.”

“You’re late!” Sakura and Naruto screamed in unison, as though they hadn’t expected it by now.

Kakashi made conciliatory noises. “Maa, maa, I had to pick up some dog food at the market, and the first few stores were sold out.”

“LIAR!” they both screeched, causing the Hogwarts students to wince.

“You don’t even have a dog!” Naruto added, crossing his arms and pouting. Kakashi cheerfully ignored them and starting to cross the bridge.

“Stop making so much noise, loser,” Sasuke grumbled as he pushed off from the bridge and prepared to follow Kakashi.

“Dyyyyy…”

“Did you hear something?” said Ron.

“Naaaaaa…”

“Hear what?” asked Harry.

“Miiiiic…”

“I swear I can hear someone shouting,” Ron started to say, before a shadow fell over them all.

“ENTRY!” The shadow collided with Kakashi, tucking an outstretched foot under the Copy Ninja’s chin like a violin, and smashing through the railing of the bridge.

“What the…” Hermione said, as they all all slid into combat stances and took in the attacker’s appearance. 

He was a large man, at least six feet tall with very broad shoulders, a ridiculous bowl-cut, and wearing a bright green jumpsuit with a Konoha hitai-ite as a belt. Above his sandals were orange-striped leg warmers, and on his face were the thickest eyebrows and brightest smile any of them had ever seen. Before the stranger and his victim could land in the water, there was another plume of smoke, and Kakashi’s body was replaced by a log. The attacker skidded to a halt on the surface of the canal as the log bobbed away in the current, put his fists on his hips and laughed.

“Ahaha! A well-timed Kawarimi indeed, my eternal rival!” He had a booming voice, though it was not unpleasant. By the time the stranger stood up, the three English genin realized that Kakashi must have used a jutsu to replace himself with the log at the moment of impact, avoiding the attack.

The stranger was facing the bridge again; he gave a thumbs-up, winked, and flashed another dazzling smile. The Hogwarts students had seen nothing like it since Gilderoy Lockhart, the puffed up celebrity professor they had been subjected to in their second year at Hogwarts. A heavy sigh from behind the genin where they stood at the edge of the broken railing alerted them that Kakashi was now behind them.

“What do you want, Gai?” he asked resignedly.

“It has been a month since our last challenge, Kakashi!” Gai roared. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were being so very unyouthful as to be avoiding me.”

“I have been avoiding you…” Kakashi grumbled under his breath.

Suddenly Gai seemed to notice that there were six genin on the bridge, not three. “And who might you three be? I know for a fact that only these three—” he indicated Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke, “—had the awful misfortune to be assigned such a cold sensei as my eternal rival there.”

“Erm, we’re Genma-sensei’s students, Gai-san,” Hermione said awkwardly.

Gai looked surprised for a moment, then his eyebrows furrowed. “But then, why are you here with this squad rather than training with your own most youthful sensei?”

“Genma-sensei er…had a mission,” said Harry. He wasn’t sure if he believed Genma’s excuse, but didn’t exactly have a better explanation.

Gai seemed to be turning that over in his head, before he noticed Kakashi trying to sneak away. “Not so fast, Kakashi!” he cried, and leapt nimbly from the canal, a good twenty feet away, to land softly beside his ‘eternal rival’. Kakashi gave another put-upon sigh, but stopped trying to leave.

“Now, let us have our challenge!” Gai bellowed. “I will not let the score between us remain even! I challenge you for the right to train the students of my old squadmate!”

Kakashi looked around, his one visible eye half-hooded. “Hm? You say something, Gai?”

Gai gasped dramatically, then growled to himself, “Damn you and your hip attitude, Kakashi, always so cool…” He straightened up and gave them all another dazzling smile. “But never mind that, let’s begin our challenge, for the honour of Genma’s students!”

“What challenge, Gai?” Kakashi sighed again.

“How about an eating contest?” said Naruto, apparently eager for an excuse to get some food himself.

Kakashi rolled his single eye. “That was last month’s challenge,” he deadpanned.

“Awww…”

“No, Kakashi, I have the perfect challenge for you. This will be a true test of our quick wits!” Gai brought his fist up and then slammed it onto his palm. “Jan-ken! It’s not always about skill, Kakashi; sometimes you need a bit of luck!”

All six genin stared as Kakashi and Gai squared off, and began to play Rock-Paper-Scissors. Several rounds ended in draws, causing Gai to shout, “I will not be defeated again, my eternal rival! If I am I shall run five hundred laps around Konoha! On my hands! But that won’t be necessary, because I will defeat you right…now!”

Gai threw paper, leaving Kakashi staring at their hands in shock. He had apparently expected rock or scissors, and had thrown rock himself in order to continue the string of draws, or simply win. Then he shrugged to himself, and let his visible eye smile at Gai. “Looks like you’re the first to fifty points, Gai,” he said jovially. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?” Kakashi vanished in yet another plume of smoke, as Gai pumped a fist in celebration.

“Yes! The strength of my youth has not abandoned me!” Gai boomed, apparently talking to himself. “I’m not ashamed to admit that it came right down to the wire, but the fires of youth have pulled through!”

He turned to see the students on the bridge all still staring at him. He flashed them his trademark smile and thumbs-up. “You three should probably follow my eternal rival,” he said to Kakashi’s students. “I wouldn’t dream of taking away the first squad to ever pass his test and begin to warm his cold heart. As for you, the students of Genma, your training today falls to me! My own students have a mission this morning, so I will test your physical conditioning and instruct you in the noble art of taijutsu. Come; let us begin with a lap around the village!”

He began running immediately, though it was a pace that the genin could easily keep up with…if they ran flat-out. Waving a hurried goodbye to Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, the three of them chased after Gai. After their lap, he led them to training ground nineteen, which was a large field, half of which was filled with wooden sparring dummies.

“Now,” said Gai, turning to face them and holding his hand thoughtfully to his chin. “I understand that your training only began a short while ago, but I am under the impression that you are at least passing familiar with chakra?” They all nodded. “Very good; now I’m sure Genma has you studying very hard to work on the mental portion of your chakra, so let this be a day to focus on the physical. Has Genma determined a particular art for your fiery youth to follow?”

“Actually, he said that we all suited different styles,” Hermione answered. “He taught us our elemental chakra affinities, and recommended practices based on them.”

“Did he name any schools?” Gai asked, apparently lost in thought.

“No, he just said that Harry’s lightning affinity suited fast, direct attacks; Ron’s wind affinity suited sidesteps and misdirections; and my earth affinity would be suited to a soft and flexible style,” Hermione recited.

“Sounds like he’s thinking of Toraken, Hebiken, and Kirinken,” Gai mumbled. Then, before they could interpret what he had said, Gai nodded and gave them another ‘Nice Guy’ grin, his teeth dazzling. “Very well, we will begin with the first-level kata for each. It is not yet time for you to integrate chakra, which will distinguish each of your final styles; first you must learn the movements. Harry-kun, your style shares many of the kata with my own Gouken, while the other two will share more heavily with Jyuuken. Ron-kun, Hermione-chan, here is your first kata.”

The rest of the day was excruciating under the sweltering sun, but all of them were aware of just how much they had learned from Gai-sensei, no matter how…unusual the man might be. He sent them home with a promise to provide training scrolls on each of their styles to Genma, and they bowed, thanking the odd jonin gratefully.

* * *

“Absolutely not, Genma,” snapped the Hokage. “For the third time this week you ask for clearance to share with foreign genin not just one, but several highly-classified secrets; none of which has any bearing on the task that you have been given!”

* * *

There was no note the next day from Genma, who was presumably still on his mission, so Harry, Ron, and Hermione returned to the bridge. Sasuke and Sakura were both there before them today, and they chatted as amicably as they had the day before. When Naruto joined them, he and Ron quickly resumed their debate about planning versus improvising. Kakashi appeared after just an hour—without his book!—surprising them all…though they thought they knew why after he glanced around furtively and led them straight to training ground three.

His students were too surprised to lecture him, so he was spared having to come up with an excuse for not being “on-time” today. Kakashi had decided that, with the older students joining them, they may as well learn some ninjutsu today. All of them ought to have the control for it, and Genma’s team had affinities that matched his own students pretty well. Kakashi produced his book again as he divided them into pairs, matching Harry with Sasuke, Ron with Naruto, and Hermione with Sakura. 

The dark-haired boys he set to work on Dengekishu no jutsu, which Harry-kun translated after a moment as ‘shocking hands’—a technique to discharge electricity into whatever was struck. Young Harry-kun had a lightning affinity, and Kakashi was beginning to suspect that Sasuke-kun might as well, despite the Uchiha clan’s famous tendency toward fire users. Sasuke-kun had spent huge amounts of time training to use his clans famous fireball, not realizing why he found it quite so difficult…though not as difficult as Itachi-kun had, if Kakashi remembered correctly. He shook his head to clear it; now was not the time for bitter recollections.

Ron-kun had a wind affinity, and Kakashi had a feeling that Naruto-kun did as well—he took after his father in every other way already, after all—so he showed them the basics needed for Kuukidangan no jutsu, then paused so that Ron-kun to translate ‘Air bullet’ into his own language. The jutsu would create a small burst of compressed air, which could be used to deflect projectiles or push back an enemy.

The two girls, he had a little more trouble deciding. Hermione-chan had an earth affinity, but Kakashi had Sakura-chan pegged for a water-type. From what he had seen of Hermione-chan, though, the girl probably had a talent for water as well, so he decided on Gyoushuku no jutsu after a little debate. Hermione interpreted this as ‘Condensation’; a jutsu for drawing ambient moisture from the air to form a small jet. It had less immediately-apparent combat potential, but Kakashi knew from experience that even E-rank jutsu like the ones he was teaching today could be deadly if carefully applied.

After a few hours of reading _Icha Icha_ , Kakashi glanced up. Harry and Sasuke were both trembling from repeated electrical discharges when they failed to contain the jutsu to their hands, Ron and Naruto were both looking rather windswept, Hermione and Sakura were both drenched to the skin, and none of them had gotten their jutsu right. Kakashi made them break for lunch and gave a lecture on both chakra flow and basic physics, explaining the simplest properties of electricity, fluid compression, and ordinary condensation, all the while never raising his eyes from the book he held in front of him. He finished his own meal with an offhand comment that if they wanted to know more, they should ask Genma or Kurenai.

After the lunch and lecture, training progressed much faster. By the end of the day, though they were all still sloppy with their hand seals and generally very inefficient with their chakra usage, all of them had managed to pick up what he had assigned them.

“Very good, all of you,” he said, smiling behind his mask. “Now, all my cute little students, that’s all I have for you today. Guests, I think Genma would recommend you all teach each other the jutsu that you learned, so that you never feel overspecialized. My own cute little team…ja ne.”

By the time the English students mentally translated ‘see ya’, there was another plume of smoke, and Kakashi was gone.

* * *

“I do not understand, Genma,” sighed the Hokage. “You continue to request S-class security clearance for children who have not yet been in our village for a month. It is most unlike you to insist like this. What is the cause?”

“Because,” Genma replied calmly, having endured being turned down each day prior for this very moment, when the Hokage would ask him _why_ , “those ‘ _foreign children_ ’ have already guessed one secret, and the other should never have been secret in the first place. Neither will affect their standing in our village in any negative way; they have already befriended Uzumaki Naruto and they do not have the background of bias against him that the other genin have picked up from their families. 

“Don’t pretend you’re not aware of how the boy is treated even by his peers,” Genma bit the words off one by one. “It’s the end result of the same law I’m asking for your clearance to disregard. Were that law enforced strictly, every single one of this year’s genin would be orphans, as would every student at the academy. Every child in this village is told to shun Naruto, for no reason that their parents will give, because you forbade us to speak of Kyuubi to anyone who doesn’t know if it. Instead Naruto is simply the _other_ , the _outsider_. Is this what Minato-sama wanted for his son? Is this what Kushina-hime would have wanted?”

Hiruzen had his face in his hands.

“I will explain the law to my students,” Genma said after a moment. “For all that I think they have a right to know, it is not their secret to tell. They know perfectly well by now how to take orders.” He smiled gently. “They are advancing at an amazing rate. Dumbledore-sama should be proud.”

At length, the Hokage straightened up. There were tear tracks on his face, but his eyes were quite clear. “If all that you tell me is true, Genma, it is you who should be proud. You have made civilians into genin in less than a month.”

“Only because they were willing to work for it,” Genma countered. He grinned, his senbon glinting in the light of the oil lamp on the Hokage’s desk. “Don’t think you can just sic a bunch of seemingly-hopeless cases on me; that’s Gai’s lookout.”

Sarutobi gave him a weak smile. “Very well, Genma. You may tell your students—and only your students. I shall convene a meeting of the jonin-sensei to decide whether it is appropriate for the rest of this generation to learn the truth about Naruto and Kyuubi no Kitsune.

* * *

On Friday, Team 9 had tramped down to training ground seventeen, visibly without much hope left of getting their questions answered, and wondering who they would be shuffled off on today. When they arrived, however, they found Genma sitting on the surface of the water in the middle of the pond, eyes closed, head bowed, meditating. He didn’t move when they arrived, and according to Harry’s watch, it was nearly seven. Harry led the other two through a thorough warm-up, including some of the specialized kata they had learned from Gai. 

By the time they had finished, Genma was watching them with his usual half-smile. “Time to see what you’ve learned this week.” Genma got to his feet, then leapt to the shore and stood in front of them, with his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face. “You’ve got until lunchtime to hit me. For every solid hit you land—” here he winked at Hermione, “—I’ll answer one of the questions you’ve been waiting to ask me all week.”

His three students stared at him.

“You can use any weapons or jutsu you like. Only rule is, we all have to stay here, within the training ground.” Genma glanced at the sky. “I’d say you’ve got about four hours. Oh, and here’s two pieces of advice: one, you’re going to need to work together; and two, you’re going to have to attack me with everything you’ve got. If you don’t come at me with intent to kill, you won’t stand a chance.”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all slid into their individual taijutsu stances, as they had learned on Wednesday. Genma’s smirk turned into a real grin. He clacked his senbon, then knelt to pick up a stone off the ground. “When this stone hits the water, you may start. Ready?” He tossed the rock carelessly over his shoulder toward the pond. The moment it hit, all three students charged. 

Harry made some hand signs and growled, “Raiton: Dengekishu no jutsu.” Genma heard a crackle, and slid backwards as Harry attacked with a palm thrust. His form was pretty good, but he wasn’t able to catch Genma as the latter danced away, keeping Harry momentarily between himself and the other two. Ron drew his bokutou and began circling, trying to find an opening; Hermione moved in the other direction, watching Genma’s movements with her eyes narrowed.

Knowing that the kids still didn’t have the hang of waterwalking, Genma skipped backwards to stand on the pond again. Harry stumbled, having attacked where he thought Genma would be, and tripped straight into the water, where he was shocked by his own jutsu. At almost the same time, though, Genma had to reverse his movements and leap back to shore as Hermione threw a flurry of shuriken at where he had just jumped. Even then, he barely had time to land before he had to duck one of her kunai. Just then, Ron reappeared, bringing his bokutou down in a mighty slash. Genma planted a hand on the ground and swept Ron’s legs, causing the boy’s aim to go awry as he thudded to the ground.

Before Genma could take advantage, though, Harry was back, and Genma had to use a Kawarimi to avoid the kunai thrust. The knife stuck momentarily in the log, and Genma used the moment to kick the log into Harry’s stomach, sending him wheezing to the ground. Once again, though, before he could capitalize in any way, the ground beneath his planted foot wobbled and gave way. He fell backwards into a handstand, staring upside-down at Hermione, who was holding a hare seal to trap his leg in a doton that he most certainly had not shown her. Twisting his head, he saw Ron’s feet approach, and Genma had to spin on his hands and use his own feet to block the next attack by catching Ron’s wrists on with his sandals. The bokutou slipped from his fingers as Genma completed his upside-down spin kick, slamming his heel into Ron’s head and sending him crashing into Harry.

Flexing his arms, Genma sprang back to his feet, expecting the charge by Hermione and turning to meet it. What he had _not_ been expecting was her for to be completing a hand seal and shouting, “Gyoushuku no jutsu!” A small, cloudy vortex appeared above her head, which expelled a stream of water into Genma’s face. He sputtered and blinked rapidly to clear his eyes, stepping back to avoid the attack he knew was coming.

Unfortunately for Genma, the water had softened the ground around the snare from before, which Hermione was still maintaining. As his foot slipped on mud and sank back into the trap, he found himself marvelling at just how good her chakra control had gotten, if she was keeping up two jutsu at once, even basic ones. The next moment, Hermione had caught Ron’s bokutou before it hit the ground and smacked it painfully against Genma’s floating ribs, leaving him marvelling more at just how much that blow to his side had _hurt_. She then tossed it back to Ron, who had come to his feet and was aiming his own blow. Not about to get hit twice, Genma flung himself forward out of the trap, toward the wall. He rolled, came up in a crouch, and used a silent, sealless Shunshin to leap to the top of the standing wall.

When he looked around, Hermione was readying more shuriken, Ron was sheathing his sword, and Harry had disappeared from view. Before Genma could find him, Ron had started making seals. “Kuukidangan no jutsu,” he shouted and spat a bullet of compressed air at Genma atop the wall. 

Genma dropped down behind the wall and hung from his hands until he saw the ripples of the jutsu pass overhead. Before he could pull himself back up, though, he heard a triumphant “Ha!” in Harry’s voice, and felt a hand close around his ankle. The next instant, Genma’s leg had seized up completely from the electric charge running through it. He kicked widely with his other leg, but couldn’t gain enough leverage to knock Harry’s hand away. So he did the next best thing and let go with his hands; as he fell, he pushed away from the wall with his elbows and let his heavier body crash down on top of Harry.

Genma rolled quickly to the side of the wall that he thought the other two were least likely to circle around…and found himself looking up at Ron, who held his bokutou to Genma’s throat. Ron tapped his teacher gently and said, “Point.”

Hermione, who had come round the other side of the wall, was helping Harry to his feet. The two of them came to stand beside Ron, as the latter sheathed his bokutou. They all looked down at Genma, all doing their best impression of their teacher’s signature smirk. Genma couldn’t help it, he grinned back at them. They really were amazing.

Harry and Ron each extended a hand to help pull Genma to his feet, and Hermione led them all back to their usual spot in the shade of the standing wall. By the position of the wall’s shadow, their spar had barely lasted twenty minutes. Genma shook his head as he leaned back against the wall. After less than a month’s training, he found himself legitimately breathing hard after sparring with the three of them. He gave them four hours to land a hit, and they had all struck him in less than a tenth of that.

“All right,” he said, careful to keep his voice as bored-sounding as ever. “If you can keep your leaves on your foreheads and keep up with the quiz, I might actually start to be impressed.” He winked to take the harshness from the line, and began to fire questions at them about the subjects he knew they had covered this week—meditation, basic tactics, tracking, hand-to-hand, teamwork through generalization and specialization, and various historical topics.

As the sun crept higher and peeked over the wall, Genma sighed and pronounced himself satisfied. All three students let their leaves float to the ground, and joined him as he got to his feet. “I stand corrected, kids,” he said quietly, rolling his senbon between his teeth. “I _am_ impressed. You’ve all been wonderful students, and you’re going to make fantastic shinobi.” They all grinned at each other, and Genma couldn’t help but join them. Damn him, but he _liked_ these kids. They were mature, they were clever, they were curious, and they worked damn hard; they had started at nothing and they were probably already outstripping most of the other genin of their relative age. He led them back out of the gate and toward the market. “Come on, let’s get some take-out.”

Once they had gotten their food, he led them to a part of town which, judging by their curious looks, they had not been to before. He led them straight up the steps, each carrying their own takeout bag, and through the double doors into the main office of the Konoha Intelligence Division. Genma tossed a bag of dumplings to the ninja at the desk, who caught them with a murmured thanks. The three students followed Genma through winding hallways, to a room that he had arranged for them to use today. Aside from a small table and chairs for each of them, there was nothing in the room save for runes and seals both painted and carved all over the floor and walls. Genma ushered the other three inside, then locked the door, and pressed a hand against it, channelling chakra into the sealing array that covered the inside of the door itself.

With a strange squelching noise, all the seals around the room activated and glowed momentarily. “This is what we call a dead room,” said Genma. “No sound can enter or escape while the seals are active. I asked for it to be set up today, a favor from Hokage-sama and the Intelligence Division.” Genma then thunked his food onto the table, pulled out some chopsticks, tipped his chair back on two legs, and began to eat. The students took their seats and began to eat too, still looking around curiously.

“Now, I believe you had some questions for me,” Genma continued, and all of them suddenly looked back at him. “The questions you’re prying about regard S-class secrets. The _only_ reason you’re having your questions answered instead of hushed is that I, personally, think you ought to know. I am putting a lot on the line by letting you in on all this. If anything that I tell you today leaves this room, I will be required by honour and duty to kill all of you and anyone you may have told. Please. Do. Not. Put. Me. In. That. Position.” Genma let just a little killing intent show through, to make them understand the gravity of the situation.

None of the three responded flippantly, instead they all nodded solemnly.

“I understand you have questions about the Fourth Hokage, but before I can address that, there is an incident you need to know more about. From your history lessons you know that our village was attacked and partially destroyed about twelve years ago by a monster we call Kyuubi no Kitsune.” Genma paused until they nodded, understanding ‘Nine-Tailed Fox’. 

“The Kyuubi is the strongest of nine such creatures collectively called bijuu;”—‘tailed-beasts’—“traditionally, each bijuu is sealed into a human vessel, who is thereafter called a Jinchuuriki,”—‘Living Sacrifice’.

“The Kyuubi’s first jinchuuriki was Uzumaki Mito, the wife of our Shodaime Hokage. When Mito was near death, a member of her clan from our sister-village Uzushiogakure was came to Konoha to accept the burden. Her name was Uzumaki Kushina.” A bittersweet smile crossed Genma’s lips. “The Uzumaki clan was famous for its powerful, dense chakra, and Kushina was once the object of a kidnapping attempt. She was saved by one of her classmates at the Academy, Namikaze Minato. After that, the two fell in love, and married secretly, for both their protection. That is S-ranked classified secret number one.

“Minato was soon named the Yondaime, and not long afterward, Kushina became pregnant. A jinchuuriki’s pregnancy is dangerous, because the stress of childbirth causes the seal to weaken. Kushina was known as the Kyuubi’s jinchuuriki, so every effort was taken to conceal that she was pregnant. Even when that was no longer possible, it was kept hidden who the baby’s father was, for the protection of all involved. Another side-effect of being a female jinchuuriki is an extension of pregnancy—a full-term pregnancy lasts more than ten months. Finally, Kushina’s child was ready to be born in the late hours of 10th October, nearly thirteen years ago. That is S-ranked classified secret number two.

“At this point, details become fuzzy, because the only people who can tell us exactly what happened did not survive the night. What we do know is that something went wrong: the guards and midwives sent to help secure the area and deliver the baby were slaughtered, and the Nine-Tailed Fox emerged. It rampaged and attacked the village until the Yondaime was able to transport it somewhere outside of the village, with the use of his Space-Time ninjutsu. By this time, Kushina was too weak from childbirth and the Kyuubi’s emergence to fully seal it away again. However, both Kushina and Minato were masters of fuuinjutsu, which regards seals like these,” Genma gestured at the still-faintly-glowing symbols around them. “By using a particular forbidden seal—the name of which I think will remain classified for today—the two of them sacrificed their lives to seal the Kyuubi inside their son instead. That is S-ranked classified secret number three.

“Now, the civilian public isn’t exactly well-versed in the ninja arts. Civilians know that we can do ‘remarkable things’, but they don’t know or care to understand exactly how they work. Indeed, fuuinjutsu is some of the most complex and difficult techniques any shinobi can study. Therefore, when they saw that their beloved Fourth Hokage was dead, and were told that the monster responsible for his death and the destruction of half the village was sealed safely inside a baby…well, few of those civilians felt very sympathetic toward this baby, whoever he may have been. It is apparently difficult for a civilian to grasp that having the demon sealed inside the child, does not make the child himself a demon. Add in that the ‘demon-child’ looks just like their much-loved leader that the demon itself killed, and you’ve got a recipe for not just neglect, but hatred. The popular rumor amongst this rather dull-witted populace was that the demon took its petty revenge by causing its container to resemble the man it took away from the village, and never once did they seem to consider that there might be some other, more sensible reason that the jinchuuriki might look like the Yondaime. 

“This comprises S-ranked classified secret number four, but you three have already figured out what all those idiot villagers didn’t—you thought about that ‘more sensible reason’, and you realized the truth about the person you met, who is the correct age to have been born around the time of the Kyuubi’s attack, and who powerfully resembles Minato-sama.”

There was a long pause as Genma gave them time to digest everything he had told them. Their faces showed their varied emotions—confusion, shock, outrage—but just as it looked like they were pulling themselves back to the present, Genma spoke again.

“Out of all of these secrets, Naruto is aware only that he himself is the Kyuubi’s jinchuuriki. He learned this the same night that you three arrived here in Konoha—before that, it was kept even from him, so that he never knew why he was so hated around the village. That Naruto was kept in the dark about this is one of my own most-enduring disagreements with Sandaime-sama. 

“Hiding his father’s identity, I could understand while he was young. Minato-sama had many enemies. I believe it is for this same reason that Naruto’s godfather never openly claimed him. But to keep from him the reason he has always been an outcast? Minato wanted his son to be seen as a hero for protecting the village from Kyuubi with his every breath. Kushina would have wanted her son to push back and make his revenge by living well. I personally believe that the Sandaime’s law has done much to stifle both those possibilities, in the name of giving a ‘normal childhood’ to a boy who could never have had anything resembling one.”

Done eating, Genma rose to his feet, drew the door’s key from his pocket, and laid it on the table. “I will leave you to draw your own conclusions,” he told them. “You may use this room for as long as you need. The seals will disengage when the key turns in the lock, and you won’t be able to reactivate them, so be certain before you go.”

Genma met each of their eyes carefully. “Also, the wording of the Sandaime’s law states that you may not so much as mention Kyuubi no Kitsune in the presence or hearing of anyone who does not already know about it. This means, essentially, everyone below jonin-rank except for you three, and Naruto himself. It is up to you if you wish to tell him that you know his secret, but if you choose to do so, you will also be responsible for explaining that you understand the difference between container and contained. I will not stand for you three to begin treating him like the rest of those fools do.”

Genma waited for each of them to nod solemnly, before he dropped a smoke bomb and vanished from the room without a trace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, Genma can be a real jerk when he’s in a pranking mood. You have to wonder, is it really so terrible to just answer a simple question? But yeah, if you’re at all familiar with Naruto, you’re probably wallbanging just a bit about how Kyuubi no Kitsune—that’s “the Nine-Tailed Fox” in English—hasn’t really come up. But that’s just it: none of the Hogwarts students have any preconceptions about the bijuu. They can’t even conceive of such a thing, or the idea of a jinchuuriki. For wizards, it’s probably one of the less-weird ideas they’ve had to come to terms with. I mean, it’s not any weirder than a snake the size of a five-story building that can kill you just by looking at you.
> 
> Inspiration for Asuma came heavily from a story called _Motivation_ , which was abandoned unfinished but very good while it lasted. The meditation technique he calls “the Flame and the Void”, people will probably recognize from the _Wheel of Time_ series, but I’ve been familiar with the concept for much longer than that. Kurenai, as I have mentioned before, comes mainly from _Team 8_. I draw Gai from both _Team 8_ and a fic called _Cutting Loose_. The “styles” that Gai teaches them are basically made-up, but based heavily on real martial arts; “Toraken” means ‘Tiger-fist’, “Hebiken” means ‘Snake-fist’, and “Kirinken” means ‘Kirin-fist’ (Referring to the mythical Qilin, though a modern translation would be ‘giraffe-fist’, heh.) This version of Kakashi is primarily my own headcanon, though there are hints in there from other stories, like _Connections_. The moral is that anybody’s headcanon can contribute to mine, and I hope mine can do the same for someone, someday.
> 
> I feel like this chapter was super rushed, but I really needed to get this background set so that we could get the secrets out and start doing missions. What do you guys think? Did I hurry through the lessons too much? Was the fight scene any good? *nervous noises* Anyway, the basic training and the dreadful secrets are out of the way, so I think it’s high time that our Trio (finally) does some missions and kickstarts the plot.
> 
> And yes, before anybody jumps down my throat, I’m perfectly aware of how Shunshin works (I explained it earlier in this fic, for goodness’ sake!), and that it would not allow Genma to leave the Dead Room without disrupting the seals. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that Shunshin also does not require the dropping of a smoke bomb. Yet here, Genma did drop a smoke bomb. Why do you think that might have been?
> 
> Finally, yes, I know that Kushina was not a princess of any sort. That’s just what Genma calls her in this story.


	9. Intent To Kill

For the most part, the wizards’ prison at Azkaban Fortress stood silent, lashed by howling winds. Occasionally the silence would be rent by hysterical shrieks from the inmates, usually as they slept. From one particular cell, alone in its wing, however, there came quite a different sound, as the handful of human guards who patrolled the fortress could attest. The sound of ceaseless foreign chatter in a tone of purest outrage. Barty Crouch had been brought in personally, once, as an interpreter…and had promptly left again with his nose in the air and an expression of greatest distaste, stating that he refused to speak to any prisoner who used so many and yet such uncreative obscenities.

“–cking gutless, blasphemous, cowardly, mud-eating, god-hating, pig-loving, heathen pieces of–” 

Within the cell, Hidan of Yugakure stalked back and forth as best he could, considering that his hands and feet were shackled with goblin-forged steel which he couldn’t break, and that his cell was barely five-by-five, and that he could not channel so much as a spark of chakra, and hadn’t been able to since the day he was brought in. Whatever those creatures that stalked this place were, they were an abomination. Just how long was he going to be stuck here? Until the fortress itself crumbled and the shackles rusted away, it seemed; even if all the human guards stopped coming to feed him, he would be succored by Jashin-sama until his final salvation.

That didn’t mean it wouldn’t suck, though.

As he turned on his heel for yet another circuit of the cell, which would take _precisely_ two-and-a-quarter steps, he suddenly froze. There was someone outside the window.

While this fact in itself was remarkable, considering his cell was several stories above ground level, his startlement came from the face itself—it was pale-blue and fishlike, with markings like gills under the eyes and a grin consisting entirely of sharp, pointed teeth. On the fish-man’s forehead was a Kirigakure hitai-ite, with a long line scratched through the symbol. So, he was a rogue, even if his aquatic appearance made it obvious that he was from the land of Water.

“Hello,” said the stranger in a gravelly voice, using their own tongue unlike the heathens in the rest of the fortress. “You seem to be in quite a predicament.” His equally pleasant and self-satisfied tone made it abundantly clear that he loved the sound of his own voice, which flowed like blood on the jagged rocks of this island’s shore.

Hidan said nothing. He wanted to scream, of course; to rage, and to curse, but on the off chance that salvation had come early…without the need to wait a hundred years for the bars of the window to rust enough for him to break through without chakra…he could afford to keep silent for a moment.

The stranger plainly had no problem filling the silence himself. “Well, fortunately for you, Leader-sama wants us to fetch you back home to fill in an unfortunate gap in our roster.”

“Just who the hell are you? And why me?” Hidan asked, as civilly as he was capable.

“Me?” the shark-man inquired as he wrapped his hands around the window’s bars. “Hoshigaki Kisame, formerly of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. Our organization?” here he ran a finger along the collar of the cloak he wore, where Hidan saw a detail like a red cloud. “We are called Akatsuki. Whether you will join us is still to be decided, but suffice to say that Leader-sama was sufficiently impressed with the tales of your…exploits in Yugakure. That, and I must say, your own resilience in this chakra-leeching atmosphere is certainly noteworthy.” The stranger’s arms flexed, and with a sharp screeching and a crumbling noise, he tore the iron bars from the window. 

“Why aren’t you losing chakra?” Hidan asked suspiciously.

“Oh, I am,” said the other, carelessly. “But I’ve got rather a lot more to lose than most.”

“I need to get back what these heathens stole from me,” said Hidan, moving eagerly to the edge of the tower and holding out his arms for Kisame to break his shackles.

A frown creased Kisame’s face, but he snapped the chains easily enough. “Itachi-san will get your effects. We need to get away before they notice you’re gone.” With that, he reached out suddenly and bundled Hidan under one arm as he turned to run down the side of the fortress. Ten feet from the ground, the shark-man sprang away from the wall, landing beside the sea.

“Here, this ought to see you back to the mainland,” Kisame said, offering Hidan a soldier pill. “You’ll feel like hell by morning, but I suppose that won’t be anything nothing new, will it?” He laughed, though nothing was particularly funny. “Take it now, and you’ll be ready by the time Itachi-san returns.”

Hidan threw the pill into his mouth, swallowed it dry, and in minutes felt his system begin to crank out chakra. It was nothing like what he had been used to before this place, but it was a damn sight better than having none, like he had for so long now.

“Think you can remember how to waterwalk?” said Kisame. Hidan glared at him, then whipped his head toward another figure rapidly approaching, swathed in the same red-cloud-studded cloak as Kisame. His smooth, expressionless face and slowly spinning red eyes announced someone even Hidan had heard of: Uchiha Itachi.

Wordlessly, Itachi handed Hidan his own slashed Yugakure hitai-ite, an amulet resembling a triangle within a circle, and a large scythe with three red blades. Promptly placing the first two around his neck and the latter on his back, Hidan turned back to Kisame. “Well, are we going or what?” Rubbing a thumb over the amulet, he added, “And can we slaughter a village or two on the way? It’s been too long since I made an offering to Jashin-sama.”

“No killing,” the answer came from Itachi. His voice, like his face, carried no hint of his emotions or thoughts, but it was firm. Without another word, Itachi strode out across the sea.

Kisame glanced at Itachi’s retreating back, then said, “Sorry kid, looks like you’ll have to wait a bit longer. We’ll need clearance from Leader-sama before we kill anybody, and our communication jutsu doesn’t work from this place.”

“Blasphemous damn heathens,” Hidan huffed, following Itachi as quickly as he could, still getting used to the feeling of having and directing chakra again. 

Kisame chuckled beside him, and then flung himself into the water, heedless of its freezing temperature, able to swim even more easily than the others could walk. A bit of the water splashed toward Hidan, who promptly began cursing his saviours every way he could. Kisame only chuckled harder, his bubbles marking their progress away from Azkaban.

* * *

“If you don’t come at me with intent to kill, you won’t stand a chance.”

_The spar began just as it had the last time. Harry charged Genma, electricity crackling around his hands. Sometimes it was still unbelievable the things that he had learned since coming to Konoha, Harry thought, swiping at his sensei, who skipped backwards, only to duck suddenly to avoid Hermione’s storm of blunted shuriken._

_Before Genma could straighten up, Ron appeared behind him, bringing his bokutou down in a mighty slash. Genma planted a hand on the ground and swept Ron’s legs, causing the boy’s aim to go awry as he thudded to the ground. Before Genma could take advantage of Ron’s collapse, however, Harry was on him, and Genma couldn’t get out of the way in time._

Intent to kill… 

_Harry didn’t know the kunai found its way into his hand; he had only intended to shock Genma with his Dengekishu no jutsu, not stab him! The electricity in Harry’s hands was running down the blade of the knife as it extended, as if in slow motion, toward Genma’s chest. He felt the handle of the kunai vibrating, the way his wand had vibrated in the graveyard when he had fought against Voldemort, and his hand was seized up around it._

_Before he could pull his hand back, the knife sank into Genma’s stomach, and hot blood poured out over Harry’s hand. Genma stiffened, pain and electricity both coursing through his body, and Harry looked up, horrified. Instead of his sensei’s shoulder-length brown hair and easy smirk, Harry found himself staring into the glassy, empty grey eyes of Cedric Diggory._

Intent to kill… 

_Behind Cedric, Harry saw an evil grin in a red-furred face, with pointed teeth as long as Harry’s whole arm, flaming red eyes, and nine lashing tails…_

* * *

Not for the first, or even the second time since his arrival in Konoha, Harry woke screaming. He did not reach for his glasses this time, but lay there, panting and staring up at the blurry ceiling. As usual with his nightmares since the Third Task and the ordeal in the graveyard of Little Hangleton, he felt completely awake, no matter that it was the middle of the night and he had only been asleep a few hours. The nightmares had, if anything, intensified since Genma-sensei had revealed some of the secrets of Konoha, though fortunately they had all been free of snakelike visages so far.

Harry sighed, knowing sleep would not return this night, and put his glasses back on. He wanted a breath of air, and then perhaps he could read until morning came. He got out of bed and stretched, then slid the window open and leaned out. The night air was cooler than during the day, but still far warmer than it ever got at Hogwarts or Privet Drive. Hermione had yet to decide exactly where the Elemental Nations lay in relation to the rest of the world, but she stated emphatically that it was somewhere far more temperate than Britain.

Sighing, Harry stared out across the city. Then, deciding on a whim to test how well his chakra control had improved over the last few weeks, he started to clamber out of the window. Halfway out, he paused, thinking what his various teachers would have to say if they saw him going out as he was…unarmed. _Constant vigilance!_ Harry chuckled quietly to himself as he backtracked. He picked up his wand, his gloves, and his hip pouch. It wasn’t a full arsenal, but it ought to be enough for a jaunt outside.

Returning to the window and channelling his chakra to his feet, Harry placed them against the wall under the window, and slowly shifted his weight to them. Once he was standing, he turned around and walked up the building to the roof, hesitating only slightly at the top as he wondered how best to climb up. The only idea that came to him was to turn back around, and lean backwards until he was sitting on the roof’s edge, the same way he had been sitting on his window’s sill. This worked, though facing down gave Harry extreme vertigo for a moment. As he sat on the edge of the roof and looked around, he suddenly realized he wasn’t alone. Laying down in the middle of the roof and staring up at the full moon was… 

“Naruto?”

The boy twitched and looked around. Seeing Harry, he let out his usual broad smile.

“Ohayo Harry-kun.” Then he frowned a little. “Isn’t it late for you to be up?”

Harry grinned back at the blond boy. “I could say the same thing.” Naruto merely grunted.

“I had a nightmare,” he mumbled.

Harry nodded in understanding. “So did I. I thought this would be a nice place to get some air.”

Not pressing Naruto any further, Harry swung his legs onto the roof and got to his feet. He glanced around at the surrounding rooftops, and thought he saw a shadow move on one of them. Remembering what Genma had said about rewarding them for spotting their ANBU minders, Harry drew one of his blunted practice kunai and flung it toward the shadow, knowing that the ANBU would dodge it easily. He didn’t wait for the knife to land, but laid down beside Naruto. The constellations were still unfamiliar to him, but he thought he recognized Mars glinting near the zenith.

_It is up to you if you wish to tell Naruto that you know his secret…_

Genma’s voice seemed to echo in Harry’s mind. He, Ron, and Hermione had decided that they should let Naruto know, and now seemed as good a time as ever, since he was sure no one else was listening. The three of them had agreed after the meeting a few weeks back, that since they only knew Naruto as he was, that they couldn’t very well assume he was dangerous, or anything but what he appeared to be. They had also decided that Harry should be the one to broach the subject, though Ron and Hermione wouldn’t explain to him why they thought so. Harry had looked for Naruto since, but between the blond’s busy schedule and the fact that Genma-sensei had allowed his own team to start taking D-rank missions themselves, he hadn’t seen the other boy since then.

“Naruto-kun,” said Harry slowly, imitating the other boy’s form of address. “You remember a few weeks ago, when my team trained with yours all together? At the end of that week, we sparred with Genma-sensei, and when we won, he took us to a private place to go over what he called some ‘need-to-knows’ of Konoha. He told us about…well…about you,” he finished, lamely.

Naruto seemed to stiffen, Harry saw out of the corner of his eye. Without waiting for a reply, Harry continued, “He said he only told us because he was worried we might make trouble for you if we went around asking questions in the village at large. I guess he knew your…” Harry hesitated for a moment. “Your predecessor.”

Naruto was now staring at the side of Harry’s face, his blue eyes wide in the moonlight. “Genma-sensei wouldn’t say much about that person, whoever he or she was, but I get the feeling that they were close. He told us about your…tenant, and how you are the Fourth Hokage’s Legacy.” A small smile tugged at the corner of Harry’s mouth on the side Naruto couldn’t see, but he controlled his face quickly. “Anyway, Ron, Hermione, and I talked it over after Genma-sensei left. We’ve been waiting for a chance to talk to you about it, but Genma sensei has had us splitting up between other sensei for individual training ever since then; we only had squad training again yesterday. Last night we talked again, and we decided…well, we’re just outsiders, but we don’t really see what all the fuss is about.”

Naruto’s mouth fell open, but he still seemed unable to speak. His sky-blue eyes—almost the same colour as Dumbledore’s, Harry suddenly noticed—now looked rather watery.

“Well, anyway,” Harry said, pretending he hadn’t noticed. “The three of us are really grateful to you for helping us find this place to live, and for training with us this week, so I think it’s safe to say we’re all glad to be your friends.”

It was a little cheesey, Harry thought, but a quick glance at Naruto’s face as the boy scrubbed his eyes and nose with the back of his sleeve told Harry that he had said the right thing.

After giving the boy a moment to compose himself, Harry said, “Do you want to grab some ramen tomorrow, Naruto? It’s a weekend so we have the day off.”

Naruto shook his head. “I can’t, Harry-kun; Hokage-jiijii gave us a C-rank mission today; we’re leaving at dawn!”

“A C-rank? Already? That’s great, Naruto-kun.” Harry grinned at the younger boy, who he suddenly noticed was still dressed in his usual training pants and jacket…which looked distinctly _orange_ in the poor light. Genma-sensei would be grumpy, Harry thought, still grinning.

Naruto’s grin in return was mischievous. “I told Jiijii that I wouldn’t leave his office until he gave me a real mission, so we’re going to escort some old guy back home to build a bridge.”

“Well then, maybe we’ll be able to see you off,” Harry said.

Naruto looked shocked. “Are you really gonna wake up at dawn to watch us leave?”

Harry snorted. “Who told you to meet at dawn, Naruto?”

“Kakashi-sensei di…oh…”

“You should probably be there at dawn anyway, though; you never know when he might suddenly decide to be on time,” Harry chuckled. “Late or not, he’ll look after you guys, and you’ll look out for each other, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll look out for Sakura-chan and that stuck-up jerk…”

As Naruto continued to grumble quietly, Harry got to his feet, stretched, and cast a fresh eye over the village. There was someone else who he wanted to wish luck. “Tell Sakura-san good luck for me as well,” Harry added over his shoulder. Naruto waved a hand in acknowledgement, and Harry turned back to the edge of the roof.

He hadn’t quite mastered roof leaping yet, but he thought he could manage to walk back down the building to the street. He let his eyes scan the rooftops out of habit. Though the prickling on his neck was the same as ever, he didn’t see any movement or sign of Lizard. Ah, well. The man would keep track of him no matter what he did. As Harry passed his window coming down, he closed it carefully from the outside. No sense advertising to anyone else that he wasn’t in his bed. _Constant vigilance_.

While admittedly, memories of Mad-Eye Moody were occasionally painful in themselves, Harry didn’t regret most of them. The pain came when he remembered that he had never actually met the old auror who he so admired; who had suggested that Harry himself might make a good auror someday. Instead, Harry had been interacting with an imposter; a Death Eater who was an integral part of the evil plan which had ended up with Harry in that graveyard, tied to a headstone a scant twenty yards from Cedric’s dead body, watching Voldemort rise again… 

Harry shook his head. From everything he could tell, the imposter had been a near-perfect actor. And fortunately, the real Moody had been alive when the Death Eater was unmasked, since the imposter needed to be able to question him. Last Harry had seen the real Moody, he was still unconscious and recovering in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing, pending transfer to St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries…though Harry had overheard Dumbledore arguing this fact, saying that Moody would not thank them for placing him in “such an unsecured location”.

In the end, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had decided among themselves that even though the memories they had of Moody were fake, the man deserved the admiration that they gave him due to his long and successful career fighting the Dark Arts and the dark wizards who practiced them. And, in any case, the phrase “constant vigilance” currently came to Harry’s mind with far less bitterness than “intent to kill”…

Harry shook his head again to clear it. He would have to talk that over with Ron, Hermione, and Genma-sensei, later today if possible. It was sticking with him and bothering him too much. Looking up, Harry was surprised to find himself already standing before the Uchiha gates. It was where he had intended to come, but he had been completely distracted while walking. Genma-sensei would not be pleased.

The gates were shut, and after his talk with Sasuke the previous week, Harry knew much better than to try scaling them. The traps on the walls of the Hyuuga compound were only activated after dark, due to the fact that the Byakugan itself was an effective alarm system while the user was awake, capable as it was of seeing through walls and other obstacles. The Uchiha compounds traps were never deactivated, Sasuke had told Harry. The only way to enter safely was through the gate, and if the gate was closed, good luck getting inside without getting netted, stabbed, and probably poisoned.

Harry stared at the closed gate for a moment, then turned around, supposing that he would have to catch Sasuke at dawn, when he heard a tiny creak. In contrast to his distracted walk over, Harry’s head whipped around, though he relaxed when he saw Sasuke peering around the edge of the barrier at him.

“Harry?” the younger boy looked surprised on what little of his face Harry could see.

“Hi,” said Harry awkwardly. “I heard about your mission tomorrow from Naruto, and I wanted to say congratulations on your first C-rank.”

Sasuke seemed to relax very slightly, though he still did not open the gate any farther.

“Er…” The awkwardness was spiralling now. “Are you excited?”

Sasuke’s visible shoulder shrugged. Looking at the boy more closely, Harry saw sweat and tear tracks on his face, and he thought Sasuke’s eyes seemed shadowed.

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked.

Sasuke flinched, and Harry forced himself not to move forward, his new training clashing with his instinct to comfort his friend. “Sasuke…”

The boy seemed to slump, but he drew the gate open and jerked his head so Harry could enter. Harry did so, moving slowly with his hands clearly visible, unable to read Sasuke’s mood. Sasuke pulled the gate shut behind Harry, then turned on his heel and walked away without a word, his dressing gown flapping a little, evidently expecting Harry to follow. Harry expected them to head for the dock on the pond, where he had first met Sasuke and where they had hung out a few times since, but the boy turned the other way at the first crossroads, and Harry trailed silently after him, his shinobi training muffling his footsteps automatically.

Something was bothering Sasuke, that was certain, Harry thought. Sasuke was never garrulous like Naruto, but he didn’t usually give Harry the silent treatment. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem likely to be the mission itself. Sasuke wasn’t one to step down from any challenge, especially one that Naruto was up for.

Harry followed Sasuke down the street and up onto the porch of one of the larger houses on the street. Sasuke seemed to hesitate another moment, before pulling the door open and standing back to let Harry in. Harry paused just inside to take off his sandals, trading them for the slippers his host wordlessly handed him. Sasuke then led him past several closed doors, taking him deeper into the very traditional house, until he drew up a chair at a narrow, scrubbed kitchen table, which was high enough to merit a chair in contrast to the low table in the front room, at which it would have been necessary to sit in seiza.

Harry took a seat opposite Sasuke and, as he had done the first time they met, waited for the other boy to speak. Sasuke stared down at the table for a while, not looking up at Harry, who sat quietly but attentively. He wouldn’t say that Sasuke was as starved for attention as, say, Naruto was, but the Last Uchiha had his own hangups that stemmed from unfair expectations and a brutal loss of childhood innocence. Harry, whose own past could be fairly considered a combination of both boys’, understood both quite well. It was probably why they both opened up to him, he reflected. Sasuke had never been ignored, but much of the town—particularly the civilians—seemed to place him on a pedestal, which prevented him from being able to connect properly with anyone. Added to Sasuke’s own introversion, it seemed like the young Uchiha had been simply left to live alone in his former clan’s empty compound.

Were it not for…Naruto’s predicament—Harry was careful to censor his thoughts on the subject even in his own head—he would have thought that Sasuke and the orange-clad boy would have been friends already, but it seemed the Uchiha’s reputation had preceded him too much at the Ninja Academy, and Naruto instead saw Sasuke mainly as a rival to be surpassed.

“It was tonight,” Sasuke said suddenly, cutting off Harry’s train of thought. He tilted his head questioningly, waiting for Sasuke to elaborate. “Four years ago tonight,” the boy mumbled. “The night that…my family…”

While not outwardly showing more than a blink, Harry mentally cringed and clapped a hand to his forehead. Of course, 27 July. No wonder Sasuke looked like he hadn’t slept. Harry should have remembered, should have come by after training.

There was nothing to say. Harry was used to nightmares on Halloween night, if he let his mind dwell on his own parents’ deaths, but he had been too young when it happened to remember very much. Very slowly, Harry moved his hand across the table to rest lightly on Sasuke’s. The younger boy didn’t move, or speak further. Tears started in his eyes and he turned his head, dashing them away with his other hand.

After a few minutes, Sasuke had pulled himself together somewhat, and Harry got to his feet. He crossed the kitchen to the stove, where he saw a teapot; he filled it and set it to boil, then hunted through the cabinets until he found a small jar of tea leaves.

As Harry set a steaming mug of tea in front of him and took a seat once more, Sasuke said, “This was one of the only rooms that I didn’t have to clean.” He trailed off again, and held his tea close, looking lost, until Harry broke the silence. 

“Nobody helped you clean?”

It was close to the subject, but Harry could tell Sasuke still wasn’t ready to address it directly, so they would dance around it for a while. Harry was nearly sweating as he sipped his own tea. He didn’t really know what he was doing. Few enough people had ever comforted him, and he could tell that if he said the wrong thing, Sasuke would probably shut him out, as Harry himself was prone to doing in times of stress.

“ANBU took away the…the bodies,” Sasuke whispered, though Harry could hear him plainly in the silent house. “There were too many to burn at once; we had funerals for a week. Hardly anybody came, even to the first one. By the last, it was only me, Sandaime-sama, and the dobe.”

“Naruto came to the funerals?” Harry asked.

“He is close to Hokage-sama,” Sasuke explained. “We were almost friends once, I think…but we don’t always get along.” His voice dropped still further, and Harry had to lean in. “Sometimes I think he’s the strong one. Nothing seems to bother him, even the village’s disdain.”

“He’s not so different from us,” Harry said quietly. Sasuke looked up, surprised, his eyes mostly dry. “He copes differently, that’s all. So does Hinata, and that guy Rock Lee.” He paused. “They all have people to talk to, when it gets to be too much. Their sensei, or the Hokage in Naruto’s case. Do you have anyone to talk to?”

Harry knew the answer before Sasuke gave it; could see in his eyes that nobody bothered to look past his stoic façade and realize how badly he was hurting.

“No.”

“Did they try to make you talk to someone, when it happened?” Harry asked.

Sasuke nodded. “Some Yamanaka. I only went twice before they stopped forcing me.”

“Is there anyone else you think you could talk to?”

Sasuke shook his head this time.

Harry decided not to pry, but simply ask. He looked Sasuke straight in the eye. “Will you tell me about that night?”

Was he doing the right thing? Did he really even want to know? Was he pushing too hard, too fast; opening a can of worms that would ruin Sasuke for his mission tomorrow? The silence in the kitchen was spiralling, Sasuke looked like he was suffering some painful internal struggle, but his black eyes never left Harry’s green ones.

Just as Harry decided that he should leave before he made things any worse, Sasuke’s eyes closed and he said in a rush, “I had been training at the Academy after class, with one of my cousin’s friends.”

Harry froze before he left his seat; Sasuke reached out, blindly, and grabbed Harry’s arm. His grip was tight, so tight, as he continued.

“I was coming home near sundown when I realized how empty the District seemed. Then I glanced into the alley and saw the first body. My third cousin. I ran all the way home and saw our door hanging open. When I came inside…that man…killed my parents. I attacked him and cut his forehead protector, but he beat me down. He told me I was too weak to even kill, and that I should come back when I had the same eyes as him.” Sasuke’s own eyes seemed out of focus at this point, his next words came as though learned by rote. “That’s why I have to be an avenger; why I have to get stronger, alone, so I can stop him.”

After a long silence, Harry asked, “Why alone?”

Sasuke blinked, looking shocked. “What?”

“Why do you have to get stronger alone?” Harry repeated. Something about that just didn’t sit right. He himself would prefer to face Voldemort alone, of course; he wouldn’t allow anyone else to die for him, if he could help it. And yet… “Why can’t your friends help you get stronger? Why not accept help to prepare you for that battle?”

“I…I don’t…”

“I can understand taking responsibility for avenging your clan,” Harry said. Sasuke’s grip tightened on his arm for a moment. “But you’re not ready yet, and there are others who can help you get stronger. Why do everything by yourself?”

Still staring at Harry as though hypnotized, Sasuke slowly shook his head.

“I’ll help you, if I can,” Harry added gently. Sasuke’s grip became so tight it was painful, but Harry did not wince.

Sasuke’s head shook harder, then still harder, his eyes squeezed shut so tightly he seemed to be in actual pain. Finally, he stopped, and let his head thud gently onto the table. When Sasuke looked up again, a trickle of blood ran from both his eyes, which had turned red. They were not a flat scarlet like Voldemort’s. Sasuke’s still had depth and sparkled like normal eyes; the irides were the colour of fresh blood, and each eye held a single mark near the pupil that Harry knew was called a tomoe.

“Sharingan…” Harry whispered. He offered Sasuke a handkerchief to wipe away his bloody tears.

“F-finally…” Sasuke whispered back. After another moment, the tomoe in his eyes spun around the pupil, then vanished as his eyes turned dark again. Sasuke’s eyelids fluttered shut and he slumped forward. Harry jumped to his feet and rounded the table, but found that Sasuke was simply asleep. Knowing that Sasuke had a mission in the morning, Harry didn’t wake him. Instead, he let Sasuke rest while he cleaned up the teapot and mugs, then lifted the younger boy carefully onto his back, silently thanking Gai’s and Genma’s strength training. Sasuke was small, but he was _heavy_. Honestly, the kid was all muscle.

Moving carefully so as not to jar the sleeping Sasuke, Harry glanced into each of the rooms he had passed on the way in. One was a study, another was plainly the master bedroom, but it was just as plainly unused, so Sasuke must not sleep there. The next door in the hallway was locked. Harry continued to the final door and found a small bedroom with the light on. A small backpack, fully packed for an extended mission, sat beside the door. Harry carried Sasuke over to the turned-down bed, helped him out of his slippers and dressing gown, and pulled the thin blanket over him.

One of Sasuke’s eyes fluttered open as Harry moved to leave. “Thank you,” he whispered. 

Harry smiled. “Take care of yourself and your team tomorrow,” he told Sasuke, tapping him gently on the forehead with two fingers. Harry turned away as Sasuke’s eye closed again, and failed to see a single tear—this one thankfully no longer bloody—slide down Sasuke’s face.

* * *

Naruto was gone from the roof by the time Harry got back home. He did his morning exercises there, settling down to meditate just as the sky in the East began to lighten. Before he could center himself properly, however, his eyes snapped open and he sprang to his feet, hands already forming seals.

“Stand down,” said a quiet, drawling voice. A shadow detached from the wall behind Harry, and resolved into Genma, showing his hands placatingly. Harry released the jutsu unfinished, and bowed to his sensei.

“You’re up early,” Genma added, after Harry sat back down.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Harry admitted. “I never can, after a nightmare.”

“No luck on starting that Occlumency?” Genma asked.

Harry shook his head. “I gave the book to Hermione. She said to start with our meditation practice, so I do that before bed. Sometimes it helps, sometimes…” he shrugged, but Genma seemed to understand.

“What is it that’s bothering you now?”

“Something you said,” Harry told him. Genma’s eyebrows rose, and Harry clarified. “During that team spar a few weeks ago. You said to attack you with ‘intent to kill’. That’s what’s bothering me.”

Genma studied Harry for a moment. “We are ninja,” he said finally. “At root, we are essentially mercenaries. We are paid to do a job, and we do it. Sometimes that involves killing, or being killed.”

“I don’t like it,” said Harry, flatly. “I’m not a killer. That’s what Voldemort does.”

“You killed that monster when you were twelve, didn’t you?” said Genma, sharply. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had filled their sensei in on their various adventures. “The giant snake? And don’t give me the excuse that it was just an animal; you can talk to snakes, can’t you?”

Harry said nothing.

“And the year before that, you were hoping to kill that Professor Queerman, or whatever his name was.”

“He was trying to kill me. Both of them were,” Harry pointed out.

“And the enemies you face on missions, be they bandits, highwaymen, or rogue or enemy ninja, are going to be trying to kill you and your squad,” Genma replied harshly.

Harry had no answer to that.

“You told me that last year, when you first met your godfather, you still thought he was the traitor who caused your parents’ deaths, and you wanted to kill him. You even had him disarmed and at your mercy,” Genma drawled. “Why didn’t you strike?”

“I…couldn’t,” Harry admitted. “I just couldn’t do it.”

“What was the difference?”

Harry thought about it for a moment. “He wasn’t attacking me. He had just as much chance to kill me before that, and he didn’t. I didn’t know why, and if I had killed him right there, I would be a murderer even if he _had_ been the traitor. Then it turned out he was innocent; that would have been even worse.”

Genma took the senbon from his mouth and twirled it slowly in his fingers instead. Then he said, slowly, “Mercy is a kindness that can rarely be exercised in the shinobi world. Many times, leaving an enemy alive just means leaving them another chance to put a knife in your back. But sometimes it means a life debt as solid as saving another from some external threat. Some would call it a fool’s gamble. You’ll have to decide for yourself, each time, if you’re willing to roll the dice; and you’ll have to be prepared to deal with the consequences.”

Harry considered this. Dumbledore had told him that by sparing Pettigrew, he had incurred a life debt from the ratlike man. Harry had rejected such a bond with the man truly responsible for his parents’ deaths, but as Professor Dumbledore had pointed out, it might work in his favor one day, as Voldemort was unlikely to be happy about having one of his servants in Harry’s debt. 

“You actually seem to be a good way along to learning a lesson that Sandaime-sama holds very dear to his heart,” Genma told Harry, returning the senbon to his teeth. “The central tenet of the Will of Fire is that love is the key to peace. That means that although battle is often central to a shinobi’s existence, it is worth remembering that violence is _not_ strength and compassion is _not_ weakness.”

The two sat in silence for a while after that, watching the Eastern sky start to turn pink. The quiet was broken this time by another scuffing footstep. Genma spat his senbon toward it immediately, and Harry heard a clang of metal on metal as the newcomer deflected it.

“Now I see where your student gets it from,” the ANBU said in a thin, raspy voice. Harry recognized the kunai in the ANBU’s hand as his own practice knife—the one he had flung at the shadow earlier that night. Looking closely at the ANBU, he also recognized the markings which, until now, he had only seen from a distance.

“Lizard?” he guessed. The ANBU bowed his head, offering Harry back his kunai. Lizard was a few inches shorter than Genma, but also wore his brown hair down to his shoulders, and his hitai-ite as a headband. The metal plate on Lizard’s was not backwards, however, so rather than protecting the back of his head, Lizard’s was hidden behind his mask. Like Cat, Lizard also carried a long sword on his back.

Genma, his eyes on the kunai as Harry put it away, addressed Lizard as he retrieved another senbon. “May I assume that you had that because my student detected you?”

Lizard’s reply was momentarily delayed by a hacking cough, but he replied quite calmly…and dryly, “Either that, or he has a habit of throwing kunai randomly at nearby rooftops.”

“This would be when you came up here after your nightmare, Harry-kun?” Genma asked. 

Harry nodded and added, “Then I met Naruto up here, and he said he was leaving on a C-ranked escort mission today at dawn.”

Genma grinned. “Well then, I think you’ve earned yourself a C-ranked mission as well. Meet me in Hokage-sama’s office at the usual time.” He leapt away, and when Harry glanced around, Lizard had vanished, too, leaving Harry alone on the rooftop.

* * *

Harry arrived at the gate of the Uchiha compound again just as the sun crested the horizon. He was worried that Sasuke would not awaken in time for his mission, but he needn’t have worried. He rounded the corner just as the young Uchiha pulled the gate shut behind him, and locked it firmly with a single-hand seal.

“You going to be okay this morning?” Harry called out by way of greeting.

Turning, Sasuke gave him a tired smile. “We’re escorting a civilian, so we’ll be travelling at civilian speed,” Sasuke said. “I’ll be fine. Besides, it’s not like I don’t have plenty to occupy my mind today.” He half-glanced at Harry, and his eyes flashed red for that split second.

Harry grinned and walked beside Sasuke toward the main gate to see him off. “What’s it like?” Harry asked.

Sasuke’s brow creased. “It’s kind of hard to explain,” he said after a moment. “Everything is clearer, even more so than just keeping some chakra in your eyes.” Channelling chakra to the optic nerve was a standard practice, and Genma had explained that it was one of the first things that would eventually become autonomic. “It makes everything seem to move…not necessarily slower, but I can see the breakdown of every tiny movement. Like photographs. It makes it easier to imitate hand seals, and since the Sharingan can see chakra, I’m able to copy any standard jutsu that uses hand seals.” After a moment, he grinned. “I’d like to see that loser try to take me in a fight _now_ ,” he said with relish.

“You never know,” said Harry, who had sparred with Naruto several times, and knew better than to count the blond out. “He might still surprise you.” The two of them arrived at the gate, finding Sakura already there, but Harry was not about to let the point drop. He faced Sasuke and finished, “Sometimes even when I _know_ what he’s going to do, I can’t always react fast enough to stop him. It’s bound to be the same with your Sharingan. Don’t get overconfident.” He poked Sasuke’s forehead again, as he had the previous night. 

Sasuke’s eyes widened, then closed quickly as he brushed away the tears that welled up. Harry, once again, had turned away without noticing, this time to bow and greet Sakura, so Sasuke was able to dry his cheeks quickly before anyone noticed, and adopt his usual stoic expression.

“Good morning, Harry-san,” Sakura said politely, though her smile seemed a little forced. Harry supposed she was upset that she had not thought to meet Sasuke at home and walk here with him. Not that he would have acknowledged her. Harry shook his head sadly. Fangirls. When would they learn?

Before too much longer, Kakashi rounded the corner, his nose buried in _Icha Icha_ as usual, walking sedately beside an old man who Harry supposed must be their client. The stranger wore a large straw hat and had an enormous bottle of alcohol strapped to his waist, which did not exactly inspire confidence, especially given how bloodshot his eyes were. Still, he supposed a drunken old man was probably par for the course for a genin’s first C-rank.

As Kakashi and the old man, who he introduced as Tazuna, joined them, Harry saw an orange blur bounding over the rooftops toward them. “Hey, hey, hey!” it cried. “Don’t leave without me, dattebayo!”

Naruto landed beside them, though not gracefully. He stumbled and nearly fell before Harry caught his arm and hauled him back upright. Sasuke snorted. “Overslept, dobe?”

Naruto glared. “I was meeting with Jiijii to say goodbye,” he retorted. Before he could turn to Sakura, Harry tapped him on the shoulder.

“I hope you brought some changes of clothes,” Harry said pointedly, pinching at the shoulder of Naruto’s extremely orange jacket.

Naruto winced. “I did,” he whined. “I’ve got my green, blue, and black outfits in my backpack.” He was almost bouncing with excitement. “Is it time to go, Kakashi-sensei? Is it, huh?”

Kakashi’s eye was crinkled in a smile. “Yes, Naruto, it’s time to go,” he said tolerantly. “Good to see you, Harry-kun.”

“Take care of yourselves,” Harry said to Team 7. They all waved, and Harry watched them out of sight, grinning. Glancing at the sky, he turned back up the street. It was time to head home, collect Ron and Hermione, and head to the Hokage’s office for their promised mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N** : Oops, did I say that this chapter was going to start the plot? Oh well, maybe next time. I actually was planning on heading out to the mission during this chapter, but the night before ended up taking a lot of time, and some important things ended up happening. Consider this a breather chapter, I guess; we’ll head off to the border next time, where I expect we’ll meet some other familiar faces from _Naruto_. Wink wink. This chapter was also supposed to go up on my birthday, but I needed another couple days to hammer out the kinks.
> 
> It is revealed in _Naruto_ that on the night of the Uchiha Massacre (which is never given an exact date in canon, to my knowledge, and which I am placing on 27 July for story reasons), the emotional trauma actually awakened Sasuke’s Sharingan, but Itachi made him forget about that happening, which rendered Sasuke unable to activate the Sharingan until it re-awakened in the Land of Waves. Now, the Sharingan awakens in response to an emotional upheaval, usually associated with the loss of someone close to the Uchiha; by reliving the Incident for Harry’s sake, Sasuke actively faced all of that emotional trauma again rather than shying away from it like he usually does with his stoic-face. By honestly facing it, owning it, and making it real to himself again, (rather than letting it blur into a Tsukuyomi-haze), Sasuke broke the false memories and re-awakened his Sharingan before leaving for the Land of Waves. (The full implications of Sasuke uncovering his true memories will be addressed later.)  
>  This is also why I made a point of noting that Sasuke only had one tomoe in each eye—in the canon Land of Waves, his right eye has two, because his Sharingan has technically matured from its first form, even though he doesn’t remember it happening before.
> 
> And now, an unsigned review received on 29th October:  
> 
>
>> Guest: “I always thought that ‘Itadakimasu!’ translated tp(sic) ‘I hope this isn't poisoned!’.”
> 
>   
> In response: A+, 10/10, would LOL again.
> 
> Finally, I’ve noticed that a couple people have marked this story as AU:Hogwarts. Um. Isn’t a Hogwarts AU one where other people go _to_ Hogwarts? Because this is not that. This is, like, the opposite of that.


	10. The Borderlands

By noon of the same day, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were leaving the village as well, following Genma down the opposite path at the crossroads that Team 7 had taken.

Their mission was not an escort; it was border patrol. 

“After hearing all of Kurenai-sensei’s stories about escort missions, I’m quite relieved,” Hermione mumbled.

Genma sighed. “Sad but true, even if Kurenai-chan tends to exaggerate when she gets worked up.”

They were to head West from Konoha, to relieve the team currently patrolling the border that the Land of Fire shared with the Land of Bamboo and the Land of Fens.

“Er, what’s a fen?” Ron asked.

“It’s a type of swamp,” Hermione replied. 

Genma nodded. “We’ll be a few days getting there, since you’re all still getting used to tree-jumping. We’ll relieve the Konoha squad there, make friendly contact with our allies from Kusagakure in the Land of Bamboo, and specifically _avoid_ unfriendly contact with any ninja we may see from Amegakure, which is situated in the middle of the Land of Fens.”

“Do you expect trouble?” said Harry, who had noted his tone.

Genma chewed his senbon. “Not particularly,” he said at last. “Ame is a minor, but highly industrialized village. They are not currently allied with any other village, major or minor, and are in general very isolationist. Thus, they don’t take kindly to foreigners ‘trespassing’ on their land, no matter the reason. We’ll be patrolling well back from that border, so that if we do meet any Ame ninja, it’ll be very clear who is on what side of the line.

“Those two countries, along with the Land of Waterfalls—which contains another ally of ours, Takigakure—form the line of border states between the Land of Fire and our traditional enemy, the Land of Earth.”

“That’s who Konoha fought in the last war, right?” Ron asked Genma.

“Yes. I don’t expect any incursion from Iwagakure, since they would have to cross through Kusa’s or Taki’s lands to easily do so. They won’t cross Ame, just like we won’t,” Genma added. “So make no mistake, while I don’t expect trouble, this _is_ an important border. This is a real mission and I expect you all to treat it as such.”

They all nodded determinedly, and Genma grinned. “Good. Now, let’s see how you’re all doing with tree jumping.” With that, he leapt up to the lowest branch of the nearest of the Land of Fire’s characteristically enormous trees, and they all followed him. The process involved channelling chakra to the leg muscles to make the jump, aiming correctly so as not to overshoot or accidentally brain oneself on the branch itself, then channelling a precise amount of chakra to the feet in order to stick to the branch upon landing. Ron and Hermione both made the jump correctly, though Ron’s foot slipped upon landing and he staggered. 

Harry, unfortunately, failed to jump quite high enough and had to quickly channel chakra to his hands, which he slapped against the branch before he fell the ten meters back to the ground. Hanging from the branch by this skin of his palms was neither easy nor comfortable, so Harry pulled himself upward as best he could until he could clamber onto the branch properly.

Genma clacked his senbon. “A little more force on the jump, Harry-kun,” he said unnecessarily. “You did a good job catching yourself, though. Otherwise, you all did well. We’ll travel like this for as long as you’re able, but don’t push yourself past your limits.” They all nodded again, and set off.

* * *

It took two days to reach the correct border. Genma was very pleased with their tree-jumping progress, and told them so. 

The forest ended a short way from the border of the Land of Bamboo, so they had to cover the last few kilometers to the meeting point on foot. The border was marked by a tremendous canyon, at the bottom of which lay a great river. Genma continued their geography lesson as he led them north at a jog, following the crevasse. Finally, they arrived at Tenchi Bridge, which Genma said was the only standing bridge that still crossed the ravine. The only other bridge that had been built to cross the distance had been further North, and it had been utterly destroyed in the previous Shinobi World War and never rebuilt.

There, at Tenchi Bridge itself, Genma greeted the team they were relieving, which had been there for two weeks. He presented the official red-sealed scroll from the Hokage, indicating that the orders were genuine, and saw them off. After their allies were gone though, the Hogwarts students could hear Genma mumbling about no-name, ambitionless chunin squads still taking simple C-ranked missions.

Shortly thereafter, they were joined on the bridge by another squad of ninja who approached from the Kusa side.

“Hello,” called what would have been the largest man any of them had ever seen, were it not for Hagrid, approaching with his hands visible. The three smaller figures behind him did likewise, and they paused a few feet away.

“Hello,” Genma drawled back. “Our opposite numbers, I see.”

“Yes, we’ll be here for another week.” He extended an enormous hand, which Genma shook. Then he cocked his head, taking in Genma’s appearance, and added, “I remember you from the war.” 

Both jonin gestured for their genin to step forward.

“To introduce myself properly, I am called Shiranui Genma, jonin of Konohagakure; these are genin Potter Harry, Weasley Ron, and Granger Hermione,” said Genma, whose pronunciation of their names was spot-on by now. “This is Makuragi Kousei of Kusa.” The three students understood Makuragi as ‘Sleeper’, which was apparently some sort of title. The word Kousei did not translate, evidently being the large man’s name.

Each of them bowed politely as they were named, murmuring, “It is nice to meet you,” as they had been taught.

The other jonin’s eyebrows rose at the foreign names, but he made no comment. Instead, he bowed himself, and answered formally, “It is good to meet you; I am called Kousei Benneki, jonin of Kusagakure; these are genin Juujiro, Shiore, and Karin. I see you remember me as well, Hawara.” This time, the translation charm supplied ‘Laughing Blade’, which seemed appropriate for Genma. “Well met, all of you,” Kousei finished.

Genma’s eyes lingered on the last Kusa genin, Karin, who had long auburn hair and reddish-brown eyes. Pushing her glasses back up her nose, she flushed a little. “What is it, jonin-san?”

“You remind me of someone that I used to know,” Genma said quietly. “She had exactly the same hair. May I ask, do you have a clan name?”

Karin’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and she shook her head. Genma smiled disarmingly and returned his attention to Kousei. “We’ll be in this area for today before we start our patrol. May we invite your squad to supper, Kousei-san?”

Kousei bowed his head in assent. “We would be honoured, Shiranui-san. We will meet you at sundown.”

“We have not yet set up a camp,” Genma said. “I will meet you here to lead you back.”

Kousei smiled. “That will not be necessary, Shiranui-san. We will be able to find you. By all means, please conceal yourselves well; it will be an excellent opportunity for us to practice.”

As the Konoha team left, Genma felt eyes on his back. Glancing behind him, he found Karin’s gaze boring into him. He gave his usual smile and put it out of his mind. Though, she really did look _damn _like Kushina-hime…__

* * *

Harry and Hermione were sparring when the sun set, while Ron helped Genma prepare dinner for eight. Their form had improved to the point where they were able to spar at full battle-speed, though Genma forbade them from using chakra to spar while in the field. Neither noticed immediately when the red-haired Kusa kunoichi Karin led her squad into the Konoha encampment before the sun was even fully down.

Hermione slipped around Harry’s palm-thrust, and turned on her heel to step outside his guard, directly to his side. She braced her hip against his, then laid a hand on his still-outstretched arm and pulled, which forced him to continue his forward motion in a half-circle around her. After two steps, when his balance was fully dependent on his momentum, she lifted both their arms and drew his upper body backward. His legs continued forward, and she pushed gently to force Harry to the ground on his back, tapping at his throat with her right hand for the point.

“Enough, you two,” Genma called, as Ron sat back, rubbing his stomach. “Dinner’s up.”

Hermione pulled Harry to his feet, and the two of them joined the others around the fire as night began to fall in earnest.

“I must admit that I’m impressed,” Genma said as he passed a plate to Karin. “I personally covered our tracks as well as I could, and you still found us with no trouble. Not to mention we’re almost a mile from the river.”

Karin glanced at her Jonin-sensei, who nodded. Turning back to Genma, she boasted, “I could sense you even from there; Kousei-sensei expects me to specialize in tracking.”

Genma’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead. “If that’s true, then I have to agree. If I ever need someone tracked, I’ll be sure to remember to send for Kusa.” Then he grinned, and added, “Not that we don’t generally do that anyway. Kusa has always been known for talented sensors. My genin squad’s sensei once ignored a warning from a Kusa sensor-nin; I am sorry to say that it was a mistake she did not survive.”

“I thought your sensei was that Zankyou-sama, Genma-sensei,” Ron said curiously.

“Uragiri-sensei was my second mentor,” Genma corrected. “He trained my original genin squad for the month or so after the mission I’m talking about, until the next Chunin Exam, at which all of us were promoted. Out of the three of us, only I continued to work with him. I was shortly joined by two other talented shinobi who have also, unfortunately, passed away: Uchiha Shisui and Uzumaki Kushina.”

“Uzumaki!?”

The cry of surprise came from Karin, who leapt to her feet and began tugging Genma’s hand like a small child. “Did you say Uzumaki? Uzumaki Kushina is in Konoha?”

Genma’s eyebrows were near his hairline again, but his students could detect a glint of satisfaction along with the sorrow in his eyes. “Kushina-chan _was_ a Konoha kunoichi until her death during the Kyuubi’s attack twelve years ago,” he clarified.

Karin dropped his hand and slumped to the ground. “My mother was right,” she whispered, tears starting in her eyes. She looked up at Genma, and elaborated without being prompted. 

“I lied to you earlier when you asked if I had a clan name,” she said, with no hint of shame. She dragged down one sleeve of the jacket she was wearing, revealing a familiar red spiral on the sleeve of her undershirt. “Though I don’t use it in Kusa, my family’s traditional clan name was Uzumaki; my mother was one of the refugees of the destruction of Uzushiogakure.” 

Her voice, which had been steadily gaining in force, was suddenly extremely bitter. “She tried to come to Konoha with the rest of the refugees, but they were turned away, because Konoha feared that taking them in would bring reprisals, just as the Second Shinobi World War was finally winding down. She appealed to the guards that rebuffed her, claiming sanctuary in the name of the ancient alliance between Konoha and Uzushio, but was never acknowledged. She came to the conclusion that there were no Uzumaki left in Konoha, and moved on.

“She eventually settled in Kusa, where she was not allowed to become a kunoichi, and where she met my father, a career genin until his retirement from service. Both of them died in the final days of the Third Shinobi World War, when retreating Iwa forces burned our village to delay the platoon pursuing them, and I was taken to Kusa itself by those who found me. If I had known that there were living Uzumaki in Konoha…”

She trailed off, shutting her watery red eyes. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all glanced at each other, and Genma met Harry’s eye. Harry took a deep breath, and said as cryptically as he could, given the foreign shinobi present, “I told him that we knew that night before we left, Genma-sensei. I mentioned that you knew his predecessor, but not that we knew who it was. Still, it’s _his_ name. I think he’d want to know.” Ron and Hermione nodded earnestly.

Genma considered this for a long moment. While no one in Konoha apparently connected Naruto to Kushina, it was probably because Kushina-hime had not used her clan name much after the destruction of Uzushio, for fear of further kidnapping attempts such as she had faced in her youth. Combined with the fact that the history of Uzushio was no longer taught in the Academy for whatever reason, most people in Konoha seemed to be under the impression that Naruto had been given a family name at random, rather than to assume he in any way deserved it. Fools. Still, Harry was probably right—Naruto would be overjoyed to discover he had family, however distant. Seeing as Kusa was an ally of Konoha, there was probably no reason not to tell Karin about Naruto. He supposed it would have to go into his report to Hokage-sama, but he saw little harm in it. Genma would also now have to tell Naruto that he’d known his mother, but if he didn’t reveal her status as the previous jinchuuriki, there was unlikely to be a problem with that, either. Finally, he gave a short nod, causing Harry, Ron, and Hermione to grin at each other, happy to have won a battle on their friend’s behalf.

“If you are planning to attend the upcoming Chunin Exam in Konoha,” Genma said to Karin, with a half-glance to acknowledge a nod from Kousei that they were, “Then you may want to keep an eye out for a short, loud blond boy near the ramen stand in town.” 

Karin’s eyes widened as she realized what Genma was saying. “You mean…?”

“Kushina-chan had a son, Naruto, who carries her last name,” Genma acknowledged. “For various reasons—similar, I think, to your own reasons for not using your family name—Naruto was brought up unaware of his familial connections. I will be certain to sit down with him and tell him about his mother and his clan when we return to Konoha so that he can look forward to your visit. He was raised in an orphanage until he was able to live on his own, so I think that he would be thrilled to meet you, Karin-chan.”

Seemingly unable to muster words, Karin just nodded and got slowly to her feet. She rejoined her team and ate dinner silently, and only showed a genuine emotional reaction again when her teammate Juujiro began pestering her about “sulking”. At this, she exploded, shouting that she was _not_ sulking and that she was _not_ still crying and that she would _not_ hesitate to **pound his face into the dirt if he didn’t LEAVE HER ALONE!**

Kousei restrained her, bowing hastily, and the rest of the team beat a hasty retreat, thanking the Konoha-nin for the meal as their jonin-sensei dragged their teammate away.

Genma, however, had a wider grin on his face than they had ever seen. When questioned, he said only, “Now I’m _convinced_ she’s related to ‘Shina-hime,” before ordering Harry and Hermione to clean up, since Ron had helped him make dinner. Tonight, Harry provided the water using Gyoushuku no jutsu, which Hermione had taught to him and Ron per Kakashi’s and Genma’s suggestion. Neither of the boys were as good at it as Hermione, but both of them could at least use it. 

Genma insisted they keep at it, so that they didn’t overspecialize in their own most-affine elements…though unlike Hermione, whose talent for suiton was almost equal to doton, Genma didn’t peg either of the boys for a water-type, even as a secondary element. In fact, if he had to guess, he would say they would likely both be secondarily fire-users. Still, training of secondary elements was a long way off, and until then, they were going to be learning E- and D-ranked jutsu of all elements.

* * *

After a short lesson on tactics around the campfire—pursuant to Genma’s Rule Number Twenty-Five: Don’t waste time; which still applied on missions—the three genin drew lots for the night’s watches while Genma banked the fire, and began their nightly cooldown exercises and meditation. After fifteen minutes, Ron and Hermione bid the other two goodnight, and headed for their tents. Harry and Ron would be sharing a tent, while Hermione and Genma each had their own. 

Harry, who had drawn the first watch, moved out of the ring of firelight in a Southerly direction, at Genma’s suggestion. This far in friendly territory, the possibility of danger coming in the night was very small, since South and East lay the greater part of Fire country, North sat Waterfall country, and directly East was Bamboo country, all of which were allied and thus friendly. The closest non-friendly territory was Fen country, South and West from where they stood, unless some Iwa-nin somehow evaded Kusagakure’s famous Sensor Patrols.

After a moment, Genma joined Harry outside the firelight, which he had banked heavily enough that, while still warm, it was not as bright, and it would detract far less from their night vision.

“Interesting day,” he remarked. “Never thought I’d see Sleeper Kousei with a genin squad…though a few months ago I’d have said the same about myself.”

“Sorry to be such a burden to you,” said Harry in mock-outrage. Genma just chuckled. 

“Did anything else interesting happen the other night?” he asked Harry. “Besides chatting with Naruto and detecting an ANBU. Good work on that, by the way.”

“Thanks,” said Harry, pleased at the genuine praise, so much more gratifying to him than any headpat or concession he got for his fame. “After talking to Naruto, I went for a walk to clear my head. I ended up visiting the Uchiha Compound.”

“I don’t suppose Uchiha-san was in any fit state to meet you,” Genma said after a moment.

Harry shrugged. “Not really. He hid it pretty well, though, and invited me in. Once we got back to his house, he told me a little about that night.”

For the third time that day, Genma’s eyebrows were in danger of vanishing beneath his bandanna. “To my knowledge, he’s never spoken about the Incident in detail to anybody; not even the psych-medic-nin that was assigned to him.”

Harry nodded. “He’s been bottling it up a long time,” he said simply. “He wasn’t ready to talk about it back then, and by the time he was, he felt like there was nobody to talk to. And a lot of people in the village—meaning civilians _and_ shinobi—seem to expect incredible things from him. Having experienced that myself, I can tell you that it’s not fun.” 

Genma nodded, accepting the statement as given, and let Harry continue.

“Apparently the Uchiha were disliked to the point that the funerals were poorly attended, which also had an impact on his failure to reach out to anybody. He told me about how he had to clean basically the entire compound himself, since nobody else would come in. I think he repairs the houses as best he can, too, in what time he has between training.

“Anyway, he told me about the Incident, and his brother’s last words to him: that he had to get stronger, alone, and avenge the clan. I asked him about that, and he sort of collapsed on the table. When he raised his head again, he was crying blood and his eyes were Sharingan.” Genma appeared to be concealing a look of shock with difficulty. “I got him cleaned up, carried him to bed, and he passed out,” Harry finished. “After I met with you and Lizard on the roof, I went back to see if I needed to wake him up in time for his mission, but there was no need. I walked him to the gate and saw their team off. I hope their mission is going as well as ours,” he added, smiling.

“So far, Harry-kun. So far,” said Genma. Some might regard that as tempting fate, but Genma’s Rule Number Eight (“Prepare for everything, before it is too late to prepare for anything”) demanded that they acknowledge the possibility that something _could_ go wrong—as it could on any mission. Superstition was no excuse for being unprepared.

Harry and Genma discussed Sasuke for a little while longer, and Harry recited Sasuke’s explanation of his first-stage Sharingan, before the conversation turned back to Naruto. As Harry had predicted, Genma was not especially pleased to hear that Naruto was clad in orange once more, though his reaction was as understated as one might expect from the laid-back jonin:

He had drawn himself up indignantly, taken a breath as if to shout or curse…then exhaled again, and sighing, “Ah, well. Not my student; not my responsibility. Hell, I’ll just think of it as stealth training. Maybe I should get myself an orange jumpsuit, too, so I don’t get rusty.”

“I did make sure he brought some other clothes with him on his mission,” Harry assured Genma.

“That’s about the best we can hope for, it seems,” Genma said. “Little hope he’ll actually wear them, though, if we’re honest with ourselves. Anything else of note before your watch ends?”

“Well,” Harry grinned. “Tomorrow is my birthday.”

“Happy early birthday then, Harry-kun. You’ll be…fifteen?” he guessed. Harry nodded. “Go on and wake Hermione-chan for her watch then,” Genma said, revealing that he had been paying attention to their lots earlier. “Remember to practice your Occlumency before you go to sleep, but don’t stay up too late. Sleep well and wake.”

* * *

“Happy birthday, mate,” was Ron’s greeting the next morning, as he pulled open the tent flap and passed Harry a piece of toast topped with a fried egg. 

“Thanks,” Harry yawned, clambering out of the tent and taking a bite.

“Your present’s back in the village, so you’ll have to wait a bit for that,” said Ron.

“No problem,” Harry assured him, accepting a hug from Hermione as he warmed his hands over the coals remaining from the fire.

“Morning warm-ups, deshi! You can get your morning jog in by running to the canyon and back.” Genma called from within his tent, making no apparent motions to get out of it. The three of them looked at each other, then set off, chuckling.

When they arrived back fifteen minutes later, it was to find Genma shaking his head. “Still slow, brats,” he told them, though his ever-present smile took the sting from the criticism, as it always did when he knew they were taking their training seriously.

“It was only a _jog_ , sensei,” Harry shot back.

“Don’t you get smart with me,” Genma chuckled. “You all _do_ need to improve your speed. Speed is the best offense, the best defense, and the best utility: it doesn’t matter how strong the enemy is if they can’t hit you, doesn’t matter how strong you are if you can’t hit them, and doesn’t matter either way if you’re late to the battle.”

“Yes, Genma-sensei,” they chanted.

Their sensei merely snorted. “I wish Minato-sama were here to show you brats some tricks. You’d all be begging me for speed training.”

Genma made himself some food as they finished their morning exercises and packed away the tents. Then he used Gyoushuku no jutsu to extinguish the coals, and Wana no jutsu to carefully bury them. They all swept through their campsite briefly to ensure they left no trace that they had been there, then set off North. They would head this way for perhaps a day, simply to confirm that there had been no unaccounted border crossings, then turn South again and spend the next ten or so days patrolling the Fire-Fen border. At the end of their two weeks, they would return to Tenchi Bridge to meet their relief team, and head back to Konoha to report.

Genma’s lecture as they sped North was about the Third Shinobi World War. “If I had to guess, I’d say that the Iwa-nin that torched Karin’s old village were stragglers fleeing Minato-sama’s last offensive. We’d always known he was a powerful ninja, but that was when he really cut loose…”

“What happened?” Hermione prompted him.

Genma sighed. “I told you that the only other bridge across the ravine into Bamboo country was destroyed during that time period, to cut off Iwa’s supply lines—Hokage-sama assigned the mission to an elite team of jonin who had trained under Minato-sama himself.”

“You mean Kakashi’s squad?” Hermione pressed.

Genma nodded. “The same mission where he lost his eye. Bear in mind that although I have seen the official reports, I also heard this story from Kakashi-taichou one night at the bar—and in case you’re wondering, it’s a rarity to see him there.” After a moment, the suffix -taichou registered to the genin as ‘captain’, something they had heard before from members of ANBU.

“Anyway,” Genma continued, “on their way to destroy Kannabi Bridge, Minato-sama delegated the mission to Kakashi and headed to the front lines himself to join the skirmishing. When a handful of survivors of that first skirmish brought word that the famous Namikaze Minato was on the front lines, Iwa rallied and sent an entire regiment to that front. Minato-sama is said to have killed nearly all the enemy nin himself.”

All of them simply stared.

“Meanwhile, though, Kakashi’s squad was ambushed, and one of them was captured, probably to lure out Minato-sama. The way Kakashi told it, he and his Uchiha teammate disagreed on what to do. As I’ve told you, when he was younger Kakashi was a stickler for rules and regulations, a relic of his own haunted childhood; he wanted to continue on their mission to destroy the bridge. Eventually he relented and helped rescue his squadmate, but took an injury to the face and lost his Uchiha teammate. Minato-sama, already pursuing the fleeing Iwa-nin, arrived in time to save the remaining two, and together they wiped out Kannabi Bridge behind the retreating enemy. The Tsuchikage began pressing for surrender terms soon afterward, and Sandaime-sama, having already decided to name Minato his successor, accepted. The peace talks were settled in Konoha, though admittedly not without further incident.”

“He killed a thousand people?” Hermione repeated in a high-pitched voice. “By himself?”

Genma hummed in thought. “Reasonable estimates put his personal count for that battle at closer to eight hundred. Despite what Iwa likes to claim, he was not the only one fighting. One thousand to fifteen-hundred would be closer to his count for the entire war.”

“I don’t think even You-Know-Who killed that many people…” Ron said weakly.

“This was in _open war_ ,” Genma emphasized. “He was a soldier. He killed men who were invading his land, attacking his comrades, and killing his countrymen. When an enemy surrendered, he moved on. And Minato-sama never harmed civilians. Ever. There are many accounts of him ordering a ceasefire if he found that there were noncombatants on the battlefield. This is in spite of Iwa repeatedly targeting our medics and burning farmland both here and in Bamboo.”

Harry just shook his head. He understood what Genma was saying; he could even say he understood Minato’s actions…but the idea of taking a life, even a Death Eater who attacked him, just didn’t sit right with Harry. He wondered vaguely if Professor Dumbledore had ever killed anyone. Sensing their collective discomfort, Genma dropped the subject and let them be for a few hours.

* * *

When the party stopped for lunch, the conversation turned to elemental ninjutsu training. As they all unpacked their food, Genma explained how they would train to refine their control—they all leaped high enough to pluck leaves from the tree under which they sat, Genma actually tearing off an entire branch.

“You all recall the test with the chakra-paper. By focusing your chakra correctly, you will be able to recreate the same effect with the leaf. This will require you to actually transform your chakra into your element under your own power, rather than relying on the paper to reveal it.” 

Genma held up a leaf between his first two fingers, and a moment later it drooped over, heavy and dripping with water. He dropped it and plucked another from his branch. This one crumbled to dirt, which Ron then had to brush off his jacket. Genma’s third leaf burst into flames, burning down to his fingers before he shot a narrow jet of water out of his mouth at it. He plucked a fourth leaf. 

“Just a moment,” he mumbled through clenched teeth, his senbon rigid. “I have to work harder for the last two.” 

After about twenty seconds, the leaf crinkled and crumpled, like Harry’s chakra paper had. Genma’s fifth leaf wavered for a almost a full minute before it slowly began to tear itself in half from the top.

“Mmm. Looks like I need more practice myself,” Genma mumbled. “Anyway, that’s what you’ll be trying to do. You three, cup the leaf between both your hands, and start by focusing your chakra like you do for the leaf-spinning exercise you’ve already mastered. Then, concentrate on changing the nature of your chakra. Imbue it with the characteristics of your element; for instance, water chakra is fluid and cool, like a cloth or thread, able to be as soft as silk or as strong as wire. What characteristics do you think your elements may possess?”

“Asuma-sensei says wind chakra is narrow and fine, like the sharpest blades imaginable grinding against one another,” Ron said immediately.

“So Earth chakra would be…dry and…solid like stone?” Hermione suggested.

“And lightning would be harsh,” guessed Harry, “and sort of…charged? Like the air before a thunderstorm.”

“I think that’s a good start, in every case. It also helps that you know the goal you’re shooting for, since you’ve already done the paper test. All of you, bear in mind, this is _not_ going to be easy. This exercise is meant for chunin, with years more practice regulating chakra. You boys also need to be careful practicing this if you’re not in a position to get some medical attention: uncontrolled wind chakra will cut your hands instead of the leaf. Lightning chakra can numb your nerves like when you misuse your Dengekishu no jutsu, Harry-kun; in fact, that is essentially the effect you are trying to replicate, except without hand signs to focus. You understand?”

They all nodded, and began trying to focus enough chakra between their hands as they set out North again. Genma carried the branch with him on the off chance any of them needed a new leaf that day. True to his word, Genma himself spent the time practicing with wind chakra on his own leaves, causing them to cut themselves in different ways. He occasionally switched to lightning chakra for more practice, or one of the elements he was already proficient with, as if to set an example of what they should strive for.

* * *

They set up camp in a tiny clearing in the middle of a small stand of trees near what Genma said was called No-Man’s Isthmus—referring not to a true geographical feature, but to the narrow band of neutral territory formed by the farthest reaches of Waterfall and Bamboo. This, he said, was where Earth and Fire countries stood the closest, and thus the place where anyone wishing to avoid the strenuous patrols within the border countries would try to speed across. After another geography and tracking review, he informed them that they would spend tomorrow scouting the area for signs of crossing, before retracing their steps Southward.

None of them made any progress with their elemental transformations that day, that night, or the next morning. Genma kept up a steadier flow of advice and encouragement than ever before, reminding them again and again that they were learning elemental control years ahead of their peers, and providing what pointers he could.

In essence, Genma explained, what they were learning was how to replace hand seals with precise control in order to increase their efficiency. As they ought to know by now, hand seals caused chakra to be moulded a certain way, resulting in a jutsu. The main portion of that moulding process was to cause the two main types of chakra transformation: shape transformation and nature transformation. By channeling chakra in bands across the hands and imbuing them with a lightning nature, the Dengekishu no jutsu was created.

However, if Harry mastered transforming his chakra into its lightning nature on his own, he could eliminate two of the three hand seals he currently needed to use Dengekishu no jutsu, retaining only the third which dictated the chakra’s shape transformation. Theoretically, if Harry learned to manipulate his chakra’s shape precisely enough, he could actually perform the jutsu without seals. 

But, Genma then hastened to add, perfecting shape transformation was even more difficult than learning to manipulate chakra’s elemental nature. Even senior jonin could often only eliminate the seals needed for the elemental transformation, and then only for the elements they had mastered, such as how he himself could spray water from his mouth to later use for suiton jutsu.

“But sensei,” Hermione had interrupted him at this point. “During our spars you’ve used Shunshin no jutsu without any seals.”

“Ah, you noticed that,” Genma grinned. “Yes, indeed. Shunshin no jutsu is an interesting case. Despite requiring precise control and a not unappreciable _amount_ of chakra, the technique actually does not require any chakra transformation. The tiger seal is traditionally said to be used for Shunshin, but all that it does in that case is help to focus and draw sufficient chakra forth, the same way a learner might first gather their chakra before an attempt to wall-climb or waterwalk.

“As for why I use it so well, perfecting the Shunshin is a staple of Uragiri-sensei’s training. He can be…very insistent, and training with Uragiri-sensei can get very painful if you don’t pick up what he’s trying to teach quickly. At least, that’s how he was during the war, but as far as I know, that’s the only time he’s ever mentored any other nin. But nobody took to Shunshin like my teammate Shisui, who mastered the skill to such a degree that he seemed to simply dissolve from view, even in full daylight. He was even entered in the Bingo Book as ‘Shunshin no Shisui’ before his death.”

“Will we be learning Shunshin, sensei?” Harry asked.

“Is it going to be painful?” Ron added, affecting a worried tone.

Genma laughed. “Eventually, deshi. You all need much larger reserves before you start to learn Shunshin, or doing it will leave you too tired to actually fight. …Of course, once you _can_ do it, I’m going to make you do it constantly, because it’s also a great way to both exercise control and increase your reserves, especially when you have to combine it with other control exercises. In other words, you can look forward to learning it, but you probably won’t enjoy it,” he finished, smirking.

“Why do you emphasize chakra control so much, sensei?” Hermione asked curiously. “From what we’ve heard, not even Kurenai-sensei focuses on it to this degree, and I understand that genjutsu requires near-perfect control.”

Genma stared at her, working his senbon as though chewing his words. He was probably, they thought, deciding how or even if he would answer. 

“I have several reasons,” he said finally. “First, and most important, because _I_ personally prize control. Genma’s Rule Number Twenty-Four: If you lose control, you’re already dead.” 

Genma waited for them all to nod that they understood. They did so, assuming that this was the only reason he was going to give. Surprisingly, however, he continued.

“Second, because the primary focus of a Konoha ninja squad is teamwork. Establishing the required trust can sometimes take years, especially in peacetime, during which the squad should never take even a single C-ranked mission. You three, however, _already_ demonstrate flawless teamwork without any hesitation, so those drills aren’t as necessary.

“Third, because most first-year genin already have practice manipulating their chakra internally, and usually at least an understanding of the theory for manipulating externally from Academy lectures which you three never heard.

“Fourth, because most of those same first-year genin lack the reserves that you three have from mahoujutsu training at your school which they never had. Thus, your training focuses only moderately on building your reserves, mainly by demanding combinations of control exercises which your peers won’t start for another six to twelve months.”

All told, Genma’s answer was far more thorough than they had expected, and they all bowed and thanked him. Once the exercises and lecture had concluded, Genma led the three Hogwarts students out on a sweep of the surrounding area. The border itself was clear-cut for half a kilometer on the Fire side, and Genma showed the squad the most likely places and most efficient methods to inspect the ground and trees all along the border for tracks, refuse, and evidence of campfires. 

After lunch, they continued their search for a kilometer or more within the treeline, but the only camp they discovered was the one the previous Konoha squad on this patrol route had used during their own inspection several weeks before—the footprints around the clearing were from Konoha sandals, and Genma additionally wrenched from a tree a discarded shuriken of Fire country make.

The fact that Ron had spotted the site itself, frankly meant that the chunin they had relieved had done a poor job of clearing out. Genma’s report would recommend a censure for the careless nin, along with a commendation for Ron.

* * *

Late in the afternoon, just as the four of them were returning to break down their tents and clear out of their campsite, they heard a tremendous explosion. The shockwave shook the leaves around them, the ground trembled, Genma nearly dropped his senbon, and all of them stared around in astonishment, and in the students’ case, fear.

Then, from somewhere in the trees ahead, they heard a loud voice cry, “I know you’re out there; I found your camp, hm! You’re not gonna run me in, and I’m not going back where I’m not appreciated! Get lost, unless you wanna be my next art show, yeah!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N** : The Kusa genin Shiore is someone who appears briefly in the anime (in a role that would be a spoiler if I identified it); she is **not** in that role yet (and may never be). Karin, likewise, is exactly what she appears to be: a genin kunoichi of Kusagakure. Juujiro is an OC I created to round out the squad; his name means “crossroads”. Their sensei, Kōsei Ben'eki (whose name means something like “greater good”), is also an OC.
> 
> As far as I’m concerned/can tell, Karin is probably something like Naruto’s second cousin, while Tsunade would be more like his second cousin twice removed (from a completely different branch of the family).
> 
> Hermione puts Harry on his ass with the version of _Munetsuki Kotegaeshi_ that I was taught, though she moves to strike the throat as a finish rather than pinning him.
> 
> This chapter also established Genma’s Bingo Book _nom de guerre_ , which I am pretty proud of.
> 
> I’m not going to start holding updates hostage for reviews like I’ve seen other people do, but it does always warm my heart to see that little number go up, so if you want to leave me your thoughts…it would make me happy! 
> 
> I also hope to entertain enough people to someday earn a page on TVTropes, for my story(ies) if not for myself. Let that be my stated goal as a fanfic author. (To make a page myself would be vainglorious. I won’t do that.)


	11. Complications

Somewhere South of Fire country, Uchiha Sasuke sat hunched in a boat, studiously ignoring Naruto’s ranting and Sakura’s fretting, as they drifted slowly toward the land of Waves. All things considered, this mission was a nightmare.

It had been bad enough when the chunin-level Demon Brothers had attacked, but then they had been faced with the likes of Momochi Zabuza. Even Sasuke had heard of the Demon of the Bloody Mist, though admittedly only because he had one of Ita—one of _That Man_ ’s old ANBU Bingo Books. Zabuza had been an A-ranked jonin, as elite as Kakashi-sensei, and that was before he had defected. Kakashi had defeated Zabuza, but was now unconscious himself due to chakra exhaustion from overuse of his sharingan.

Kakashi’s control of the sharingan was otherwise incredible, and Sasuke had to suppose that Harry-san had probably had a point when he guessed that the sharingan was why Kakashi was their sensei. Not that Kakashi didn't also look at Naruto with a weird mix of fondness and sorrow when he thought no one was looking. Sasuke hadn't figured that out yet. He still wasn't even sure if Kakashi actually read that dirty book he was always carrying, or just used it to obscure his face even more than his mask and hitai-ite already did.

Harry, too, was someone Sasuke couldn't quite figure out. He had lost his family like Sasuke, but seemed to regard his revenge as something that was bound to eventually happen whether he wanted it or not, rather than something he had to actively seek. Sasuke couldn’t imagine not wanting it, not _seeking_ it, even as Harry had called his reasons into question. 

He…had come to see Sasuke on the anniversary of _That Night_ , apparently completely unaware of the fact. He had prodded Sasuke with many of the same questions as anyone else, but he had asked so bluntly and yet so innocently and kindly that Sasuke couldn't help but answer, even feeling a little relieved that someone was asking who talked to him like an equal, like a _person_. And then some of his questions, _nobody_ had ever bothered to ask before. He had all but forced Sasuke into doing what he had been trying to avoid all day, into reliving that horrible night…and in so doing, had caused Sasuke’s long-absent sharingan to awaken!

Sasuke had trained with Harry a few times in the previous weeks since the other raven-haired boy had appeared in the village, both individually and along with his team. While Harry was still no match for Sasuke one-on-one even before taking his newly-awakened doujutsu into account, the difference that even a single training session made for the foreign genin was nothing short of incredible. 

And when the two squads sparred three-on-three, Harry's team was nearly untouchable—their teamwork almost completely flawless. The red-haired boy was training to be a weapons-specialist, but the other two seemed unsure what to focus on. Sasuke gave a mental shrug. What did he care what they chose?

_Why alone? … Why can't your friends help you get stronger? Why not accept help to prepare you for that battle?_

Sasuke scowled and scrubbed at his forehead where twice—twice now!—Harry had affectionately poked him the same way that _That Man_ used to do…

He wondered how Harry was doing. Naruto had said Team 9 was taking a C-ranked mission as well. Well, their mission couldn't possibly be going _this_ poorly…

* * *

With another series of explosions, Harry saw a tree in the small patch of woods creak and fall, and though neither it nor the huge explosion they had heard earlier seemed to be near where their camp was set up, all four Konoha-nin were instantly on guard. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all dropped the leaves they were using to practice elemental transformation. Ron and Genma drew their swords, and Harry and Hermione pulled out a pair of kunai and a handful of shuriken respectively. They drew together, back-to-back, looking around. 

There was a minute’s silence, then they heard several smaller detonations. Genma hissed, “Formation Ten,” and began inching forward. Harry and Hermione followed, a few steps to either side, while Ron sheathed his blade again and took up a sweep position, leaving them in a diamond-shape with Genma at the front. Harry and Hermione’s job was to spot enemies, and Ron’s to provide support via his best jutsu—the only ranged offensive jutsu that any of the three of them knew—his Air Bullet.

They had crept about thirty meters in formation when Genma raised a closed fist, and they all halted instantly. They peered around, curious why there hadn’t been any explosions for a few minutes. Genma drew their attention with two more hand signals. _Enemy ahead_. Then, _Follow, ten o’clock_. Konoha had an enormous repertoire of sign languages for silently passing information, and many clans and units had their own variants; eventually, Genma told the students, they should expect to have their own ‘dialect’. Little did they know that the version Genma had drilled into their heads—like so much else—consisted not only of the standard commands and orders taught at the Academy, but also signs from his old ANBU unit’s handtalk.

The group slunk clockwise through the trees around the clearing beside where their camp lay. The explosions had stopped; now they could hear the sound of a voice—or voices, it was difficult to tell through the trees—too muffled by distance to be understood.

“Didn’t the enemy say he knew we were here?” Hermione breathed, so quietly that even Harry, who was closest, could barely hear her. She was trusting to Genma’s practiced senses to pick the question up.

Genma simply held one hand out to his side in another handtalk signal. _Unclear_. 

“If he was yelling at us earlier, who’s he talking to now?” Harry added, just as quietly. Hermione nodded, accepting that. Genma drew a finger across his throat as they continued forward, and they all fell silent.

Slowly becoming visible through the trees, the Konoha-nin saw a tall, thin, slightly androgynous ninja in a navy-blue kimono.

“For the last time, I’m not going back, hm,” he said, ending his sentence with a grunt that identified him as the person who had shouted before. He had long blond hair pulled into a ponytail on the top of his head, and was standing with his arms folded, glaring in almost-their-direction at someone or something they couldn’t yet see.

“It is our duty to ensure that you do,” replied an icy female voice. Though they understood the words as well as ever, the English students couldn’t place the accent. Genma, however, could. He raised a hand yet again. _Rock_. Then he lowered his hand slightly, his fingers pointing at the ground, and extended four fingers. There were four Iwa-nin confronting the blond man.

At the cold words, the man’s face twisted in fury. 

“I will not be talked down to by some _pet project_ with no appreciation for true art,” he spat. He glared at the four concealed Iwa-nin, but the Konoha squad was close enough that they too were blasted with his killing intent. Ron and Hermione both froze, their eyes wide with terror, and a series of thuds indicated that even three of the Iwa-nin had fallen to their knees, overcome by the overwhelming pressure that the blond man seemed to exert around him.

Genma seemed unaffected, and quickly scooped Hermione up in a bridal carry, while Harry pulled Ron’s arm over his shoulder. The two of them put away their weapons and began backing away as quickly as they could without drawing attention, but the blond man’s words still carried to them.

“But maybe _all_ of you…” and Harry saw Genma tense, and realized that the blond man must know they were there, “…could learn to appreciate superflat if I give you another little demonstration…” Glancing back, Harry saw him turn pale, then white, as if he was made of clay.

Genma’s eyes widened, and he all but flung Hermione behind a tree, then pushed Harry and Ron down next to her and began flying through hand seals. Not giving the unknown enemy time to follow through with whatever he had planned, Genma slammed his hands on the ground and grunted, “Doton: Doryuuheki!” 

A great ‘Earthen Wall’ sprang up between them and the enemy, two meters high and Harry didn’t even known how thick. Even as it rose, he saw the clay-man glow. He thought he heard it cry, “Pop is dead!”, and then it exploded, creating the biggest shockwave yet. If not for Genma’s wall, Harry knew they would all have been incinerated.

Fortunately, it seemed that the sound was enough to startle Ron and Hermione out of their dazes, and they pushed themselves quickly back to their feet. Before any of them could say anything, though, four newcomers appeared at the top of Genma’s wall. 

“Interlopers,” commented the woman who appeared to be the leader, flicking a long lock of bleached-orange hair away from her face. It contrasted sharply with the dark brown hair held back by her Iwagakure hitai-ite. “You allowed our prey to escape. More proof of Konoha dogs stealing our jutsu too,” she added, kicking at a pebble atop the wall. “Well, I certainly can’t allow you to leave now that you’ve seen Deidara…but I don’t think you’ll be nearly as difficult to bring down. In fact, I think I’ll use all this earth you’ve so kindly provided me.”

She flew through seals herself and cried, “Doton: Dochuubaku!” All of their eyes widened as they understood ‘Underground Explosion’.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a sleepy suburb of Surrey called Little Whinging, unseen by the muggles, a wizard swathed in an Invisibility cloak stared down a dementor with trembling hands.

“Ex-Expecto-” whispered Sturgis Podmore, shaking.

It was no use; he wasn’t a fighter, even if he had done well in Charms at Hogwarts. He needed to get away; needed to warn the Order that there was a dementor near Harry Potter’s home.

His shaking wand jerked downward, aiming at the street between himself and the slowly-advancing dementor.

“ _Reducto_!”

There was a flash of blue light, and the asphalt exploded upward and outward, debris peppering the dementor to no effect, but smoke billowing upward and breaking Sturgis’ view of the creature. It didn’t reduce the dementor’s effect, but it gave him an artificial reassurance nonetheless.

He snapped his wand upward, fired red sparks into the air, and then spun on the spot, vanishing with a much louder than normal _crack_!

* * *

Miles away, in an office on the highest floor of the Ministry of Magic, a set of stubby fingers drummed against a highly-polished oaken desk. Waiting for word of success.

Meanwhile, in a cramped room on the lowest floor, a quill scribbled a note of its own accord. A man wrapped in a hooded cloak even here at his job, glanced at it momentarily. No expression marred his face beneath the hood, but he turned on his heel immediately and headed toward his superior’s office.

* * *

Hearing the enemy begin her ‘Underground Explosion’ jutsu and realizing the likely consequences, Genma quickly reversed his Earth-Style Wall, dropping it from the height it had stood until it was more than three meters below ground level instead. All four enemies were adhering to the surface with chakra, so they descended with it, and when the Iwa Kunoichi’s jutsu discharged, it caused the new walls on either side of her to collapse inward on top of her and her allies. Harry, Ron, and Hermione scrambled backward, trying not to fall in themselves.

Panting, Genma sprang to his feet and snapped, “Follow!”

None of the students argued, and they all sprinted back to their camp, taking to the trees for speed within three steps. As the three kids landed, Genma had activated an emergency storage seal, which caused their tents to collapse instantly back into backpacks. They would have to be repaired before they could be used again, but that was a small concern at this point. Having already extinguished and hidden their fire from the previous night, they were ready to flee at once.

As they bounded away, all of them noticed Genma suddenly stiffen. Following his gaze as he turned to stare to their left, they saw the blond demolitions master calmly hopping alongside them. Genma’s hand went to his sword, but he didn’t draw it. Ron and Hermione both shivered, remembering the man’s intent, but he displayed none of it now.

“I can’t believe Maratsuchi had it in her to produce that kind of art, hm,” the terrorist said, conversationally. “Still, I’ve had a much better offer than just breaking things the old geezer doesn’t like, and I think I’m gonna take it.” He drew a kunai, and Genma began to bring out his sword, but the blond—Deidara, he recalled—simply drew the blade across his hitai-ite, leaving a long scratch across the two rocks that represented his former village.

“How does it look?” he asked, indicating the forehead protector unnecessarily.

“Explosive,” Genma grunted sardonically.

“ _That’s_ what I like to hear, hm!” Deidara beamed. “Just for that, I think I’ll let you live, _and_ I’ll warn you that you’re about to have company. Maybe I’ll see ya around, if you manage to survive that long, yeah.”

Before any of them could process what he had said, he was gone, and an odd screaming noise drew their attention to a whitish-pink fireball shooting toward them.

“Suiton: Teppoudama!” Genma barked, holding his hands in a tiger seal, and fully expecting his water ‘bullet’ to disperse the ball of flames into steam they could use to mask their escape. 

The fireball collided with the water…and kept coming.

_What the-_! Genma thought wildly. The fireball wasn’t big enough or made with enough chakra to overpower its elemental disadvantage his water technique. _Are they collaborating?_ By combining a fireball jutsu with a wind jutsu, it was possible to enhance the flames enough to blast through water alone…but it wasn’t something often seen outside the Land of Fire, since although all ninja villages used ninja squads, few emphasized teamwork to the extent that Konoha did. 

Fortunately, Genma’s response had slowed the fireball, and they all got out of the way in time to dodge three more screaming fireballs. Irritated now, and having spotted the enemy at last, Genma signalled his genin to fall back so that he was free to respond with more powerful jutsu. “Suiton: Hahonryuu!”

The ‘Tearing Torrent’ technique blasted out of his hand and toward the Iwa Kunoichi, who looked dirty but unfortunately perfectly alive…and alone. She spewed out a stream of mud in response, which took the form of a dragon and plowed into his jutsu, obscuring her view of him as he had wanted. 

_So it was her by herself…_ No time to think it through. This enemy was far beyond his students even if she wasn’t on the level of the mad bomber. Genma gathered his chakra and flashed forward in a Shunshin, drawing his sword and flowing his water-nature chakra along it as it emerged from the scabbard. He landed right in front of her just as her mud-spitting ended, and as she gasped to refill her lungs, he was already inside her guard.

Genma aimed a cut at the Iwa Kunoichi’s neck, hoping to end the fight at once, but she flung herself backwards in time to avoid the blade, which only sliced a few burnt-orange hairs from the end of her fringe. She scowled at the now-uneven lock of hair, but returned her attention to Genma almost at once. She drew a kunai as Genma launched himself forward again. After a brief exchange of slashes, they parted again, both breathing hard.

Although frustrated, Genma’s smirk never slipped. It was easier to defend with a short blade, but harder to attack. Genma himself was untouched, but the kunoichi was bloodied on both arms, her right leg, and the left side of her torso. The water chakra flowing along his sword made its strokes more fluid and flexible, and the wounds it caused to bleed more freely than usual. He hadn’t struck a mortal blow so far, but if this kept up, she was bound to make a mistake or begin to pass out from the blood loss, and they both knew it.

The enemy flung her kunai at him and leapt backwards, trying again to open space between them. This time, Genma was wary of pursuing, in case she resorted to the fireballs that his suiton couldn’t seem to disperse. He had a working theory about that, based on the fire’s behavior and the kunoichi’s general appearance, but something still didn’t fit.

“You know, you look familiar,” Genma said, his voice low but pitched to carry across the clearing where they stood, digging for more information. “Did I fight you in the War?”

Rather than answer him, she just hissed, “I’m going to enjoy killing you. Shakuton: Kajousatsu.” She exhaled three more of those wailing pink fireballs, which began to circle around her like tiny planets.

Shakuton. Well that verified Genma’s guess, but he only knew of one ninja who could use that particular kekkei genkai…and she was from Suna, not Iwa. Before he could carry the thought any further, she lashed out, sending two of the fireballs arcing toward him in an attempt to prevent his escape. Rather than try to run, however, Genma sheathed his sword and clasped his hands in the snake seal, using Kawarimi to switch places with a log. The wood was incinerated instantly, as were the trees behind it, and the water and sap within them hissed to steam—which both obscured Genma’s view somewhat and explained the name of the technique, roughly, ‘Extremely Steaming Murder’.

From the way the balls of flame moved instantly back to orbiting the enemy, it was clear that she had total control over them. Genma scowled. That was problematic. He had been planning to to summon an ally for some help, but with the enemy having such fine control over so dangerous a technique, he couldn’t risk anyone getting close.

As Genma continued to dodge, more trees were burned through, and the area became more obscured. This was bad. Soon he wouldn’t be able to see the fireballs coming, and he knew it would be child’s play to obscure the exact direction of the shrieking noise they made. She was clearly hunting for him with all three fireballs. He needed to get out of here. Escaping underground wasn’t an option, since all Iwa-nin were trained to detect subterranean movements. Leaping up would just make him a sitting duck. Genma shifted his senbon, and got an idea; reminded of a fellow Konoha jonin who always had something in his mouth…

Bringing his hands together quickly and ending on the Tiger seal, Genma whispered, “Katon: Haisekishou,” and exhaled an enormous cloud of smoke and ash toward the enemy. “Take this!” he shouted, as if he was planning to use the technique as a smokescreen to attack again with his sword. In reality, he simply crouched low to the ground and rolled behind a standing tree.

Thinking that he was charging, the smoke-blinded kunoichi called back her fireballs to orbit her rapidly…and discovered that his jutsu was not a simple smokescreen, but the Konoha-born ‘Ash Pile Burning’. The moment the fireballs came into contact with the smoke, the entire cloud ignited. Genma shut his eyes at just the right moment, then leapt out from behind the tree and followed it up with another jutsu immediately.

“Suiton: Suidan!” He spewed a ‘Water Blast’ from his mouth, extinguishing the small blazes his katon jutsu had started, and driving the enemy back against a tree with enough force to crack the bark. The enemy staggered back to her feet, glaring hatefully across at Genma. Hoping to finish her before she could escape, he spat the senbon from his mouth at her, aiming for her throat. The needle flew true, but the kunoichi sank into the ground before it landed. Seeing his miss, Genma drew his sword again and leapt into the tree’s branches.

After several tense moments, Genma pulled out a handful of kunai and a new senbon. The needle he placed in his mouth; the knives he flung at the ground to test for traps. When nothing happened, he dropped down himself, retrieved both knives, and pressed his ear to the earth. No sign. The enemy must have retreated. Tugging his senbon out of the tree, he sheathed his sword, put the now-dirty needle away, and went to pick up the kids. They weren’t clumped together, which pleased him; it would have made them harder to find if the enemy had gone looking for them. None of them were injured.

“We can’t count on any of those nin being dead,” he told the three of them. “Just because I only fought one…the other three probably went searching in different directions looking for the demolitionist. For now, we need to get out of here.” Harry and Hermione nodded. Genma turned South and they started walking, before he glanced back.

“Ron, where’s your pack?” The red-haired boy didn’t answer. Narrowing his eyes, Genma drew three more senbon between his fingers and flung them at the kids. Harry and Hermione both gasped in pain, rubbing at their arms where the needles had scratched. Ron said nothing, but a brownish stain spread from the spot on his shoulder where the senbon had struck. Before their eyes, his body turned entirely to mud.

* * *

A mile away, the distance widening with each passing moment, a bound and gagged Ron stared back the way they had come with wide, terrified eyes. He didn’t know how the enemy had gotten away from Genma, and had no idea how they would find him. The kunoichi over whose shoulder he was thrown had quickly collected her three fellows and torn away toward the Northwest. Toward the No-Man’s Isthmus. Toward Earth country.

Trying to slow his breathing, Ron took in the burnt state of the leader’s clothes. Genma had clearly gotten some attacks in, so Ron’s kidnapping was clearly an afterthought, not the original plan. Closing his eyes, Ron thought hard. He needed to strategize. It was most likely these four had only entered Fire Country in pursuit of that blond bloke with the bombs. Deidara, he thought they had called him. Genma had lightly touched on bakuton, or ‘Explosion Release’ during his lecture on kekkei genkai. The only known users were from Iwagakure, and trained from a young age to join the famous Explosion Corps. From Deidara’s words and his choice to scratch the Iwa emblem on his hitai-ite, it appeared he was dissatisfied with his village and had gone rogue. As if the hunter squad that had now captured Ron wasn’t proof enough of that. This squad, then, was only bringing Ron back as a sort of consolation prize, perhaps hoping that whatever information they could torture from him would save their necks when they had to return to Iwa otherwise empty-handed.

Ron’s sleeve had torn in the scuffle, and he was sure it had dropped near where he had been hiding, so hopefully Genma, Harry, and Hermione would catch on quickly. Until they did, he was on his own. The kunoichi’s partners had taken his sword and weapons pouches when they caught up to her, but they had overlooked the short knife in his sandal and the wand bandaged to his arm up his left sleeve. Being that it was under the mesh, he didn’t think they had even noticed it, but even if they did, he made it even odds that they ignored it or even let him keep it. To them it was, after all, nothing but a stick of wood; certainly not dangerous as a weapon…

But no. Even in a situation like this, his stricture from Dumbledore held: he must use magic only in the very last defense of his life, or of Harry’s or Hermione’s. He still had the knife in his shoe, which he could try to reach tonight or whenever they put him down. For now… 

Ron twisted his wrists, but they were bound too tightly to slip his hands out. One of the nin behind him backhanded him casually. “Quit fidgeting; you won’t escape.”

Blinking rapidly and spitting out a chipped tooth, Ron glared at the man for a moment before shutting his eyes again and lying still. He hadn’t gotten anywhere with the leaf-cutting exercise, but it didn’t involve making any hand signs, so there was a tiny chance he could manipulate his chakra to cut the ropes around his wrists. If that failed, the wind blades might cut his skin instead, but the blood might allow him to slip out anyway. He would try that until they stopped to rest, then go for the knife in his sandal. If that failed, he had to hope that Genma noticed he was missing soon. They could mount a rescue mission…though he supposed it would make more sense, tactically, to open hostage negotiations with Iwagakure. He wondered how long it would take, then, for him to return to Konoha.

Only one word sprang to mind. _Troublesome…_

* * *

Genma cursed and darted back to where he had found Ron. Sure enough, now that he looked more carefully, there were signs of a very brief struggle, including a torn sleeve from Ron’s long-sleeved jacket. There was no blood—but of course, Ron’s mesh armour extended to the wrists under his jacket. The curses increased in virulence. He should have left a clone with his students; the better to hide them, protect them, and give him instant warning if something happened. Instead, he would be tracking.

Piercing the end of his thumb on the end of his senbon, Genma made a string of hand signs and slammed his bloodied hand to the ground bellowing, “Ninpou: Kuchiyose!” 

Hermione whispered, “Wait, ‘Summoning’?” to Harry as a great plume of smoke issued from the spot in front of Genma. When it cleared, both she and Harry took an involuntary step backward, as they took in the shape of an enormous white bear. Even sitting on its haunches it towered over Genma by at least two feet.

“Kumakita-san?” said Genma, sounding surprised. He bowed shortly, as respectful as he could be in the circumstances. “Forgive me; I had meant to summon Kumakouri-san.”

“Kumakouri-chan has young,” rumbled the bear, dipping its head to press its nose against Genma’s forehead. “Kumakyodai-sama directed me to answer instead. How can I assist?”

“One of my students is missing; likely kidnapped,” Genma said, getting straight to business. He extended the scrap of cloth he had found. “This was torn from his sleeve.”

The great white bear sniffed at the cloth once, then leaned down to smell the ground. “This scent departs to the Northwest,” the bear said, its voice a deep basso. “It overlaps with a female’s the entire way; plainly the kunoichi who took him.”

“No doubt the Tsuchikage has heard rumors of the foreigners who joined Konoha. They’re probably hoping that bringing one of them back will excuse their failure to capture the rogue bomber. Kumakita-san, can you carry my students?”

“Of course.” The behemoth knelt, and Genma laced his fingers immediately. Nervous, but trusting their sensei, Harry stepped into Genma’s hands and pulled himself up onto the bear’s broad back, then helped Hermione settle herself behind him. Harry looked down at the bear’s sloping neck, wondering how he should hold on. “Fear not,” the bear rumbled. “You may hold my fur with hands or with chakra.” 

“We’ll stay out of sight of the enemy until they stop for the night, unless it looks like they’re going to run the whole way,” said Genma. “If they don’t stop until they reach Iwa, they’ll be dead tired from having to carry a prisoner, so I’m betting they’ll camp eventually.”

“Acknowledged.” Harry felt the muscles beneath him coil. 

“Do you know if anyone’s free to run a message back to Konoha, Kumakita-san?” Genma added, scribbling hurriedly on a scroll.

“Kumataro-kun can carry your message, Genma-dono,” replied the bear. “But your chakra…”

“No choice,” Genma said. “Hokage-sama should be informed immediately.” He nodded as if to himself, and slammed his still-bloody hand to the ground once more. A smaller plume of smoke preceded the appearance of a much smaller bear; this one stood less than three feet tall and wore a satchel around its neck.

Breathing a little hard, Genma quickly rolled the senbon in his mouth up with the message, then tucked the scroll into the small bear’s pouch. “Take this to the Hokage in Konoha,” he told the messenger. The tiny bear nodded, then dashed away in the opposite direction that Kumakita was facing.

“Right behind you, Kumakita-san,” Genma said, and without any further ado, the bear surged into motion. Holding on mainly with his chakra, Harry gripped the fur in front of him loosely, feeling Hermione’s arms tighten around his waist.

“Not as bad as riding Buckbeak, is it?” he asked her. She didn’t answer. Genma was running alongside them with no apparent effort despite his continued heavy breathing, somehow keeping pace with the loping polar bear, busily withdrawing a new senbon to chew on.

Some ten minutes later, Kumakita growled, “Three more scents join the trail here.”

“Must be the rest of the hunter team,” said Genma shrewdly. “Shame none of them died in the leader’s jutsu, but I suppose it was too much to hope for, considering they’re Iwa elite.”

They ran on in silence for another hour or two. As the sun started to sink behind and to their right, Harry asked, “What should we do when we catch up, Genma-sensei?”

“I would prefer you two do nothing,” Genma replied. “These are jonin, or at least search-and-capture specialists; they’re far more dangerous than you’re equipped to handle right now. If I could, I would have left you to guard the border, but we can’t be too careful with that demolitionist running around. Our main advantage is that we are not exactly doing the logical thing, which would be to return to Konoha and open hostage negotiations. This is riskier, but I think the chances of you three being hurt is low considering the way they chose to kidnap Ron-kun, and I will accept the full burden of any reprimand from Hokage-sama. 

“Now, once we draw close, you two will stand guard while I retrieve Ron, making sure our way home is clear. Kumakita-san, the boy may be injured. Will you consent to carry him back?”

“But of course,” said the bear. A moment later, it added, “The scents are stronger. The quarry slows.”

“And the sun is dropping fast,” Genma agreed. “So it looks as if they will be camping tonight. Try to keep us out of detection range, Kumakita-san.”

“Without fail,” Kumakita intoned formally, and immediately slowed down. Genma followed suit without question, and soon they were merely creeping along. Harry and Hermione slipped down quietly and stalked forward as well, trusting Kumakita to be able to conceal himself. 

Soon, they saw the dim glow of a concealed campfire—the enemy were plainly at ease in their own territory, even with a prisoner. Genma held up a hand and they all halted immediately. The light was fading to the point that handtalk was all but impossible, so instead, the three humans crouched behind Kumakita, and Genma hissed so quietly they could barely hear: 

“You two stay here with Kumakita-san. Do not be seen, and be ready to run. If you are attacked, forget about stealth and defend yourselves. They’re unlikely to have backup, and you’ll need to make some noise so I know you need help.”

They both nodded, and Genma vanished without another word. Harry turned to Hermione. “So, we’re helping, right?”

“Of course,” she whispered back. She sounded nervous, but resolute. “Kumakita-san, we are going to sneak a little closer in case Genma-sensei needs backup.”

The bear huffed out his long snout, but made no move to stop them as they slipped off. Carefully keeping the humped shape of the crouching bear in sight, Harry and Hermione snuck closer. Neither of them could see Genma, they knew better than to get too close to the camp themselves, but now at least, they could comfort themselves that they were close by in case anything went wrong.

Before they could do more than glance at each other, and exchange a final nod, all hell broke loose in the camp.

* * *

The great stone castle stood, silhouetted against the noonday horizon, and nearly empty for the summer. Even most of the teachers had gone home, and only a skeleton crew remained. Today, the Headmaster himself had departed, and only the Transfiguration, Astronomy, and Potions professors remained.

Unseen by the former two, who were planning lessons and sleeping respectively, the greasy-haired, hooked-nosed Potions Master slipped out of his dungeon study as he had been instructed, and hurried down toward the main gates. The summons had come very suddenly, and there had been no time for the spy to warn the Headmaster. He had been headed for the gates to disapparate and meet his master, having felt his Dark Mark burn…but when he approached, he found three cloaked and hooded figures waiting: the Dark Lord accompanied by Malfoy and Macnair, unless he was much mistaken.

“I beg your pardon, but is this…prudent, milord?” Snape asked, forcing himself not to cringe as Voldemort’s slitted red eyes found him from under the middle hood.

“This is why I value you, Severus,” Voldemort breathed, his high, cold voice a mere hiss in the afternoon. “But fear not. Before sundown, the castle will be ours, and even Dumbledore will be unable to retake it. And wherever it is that Potter has gone, when he returns to Hogwarts, we shall have him.”

Taking a deep breath, Severus Snape unlocked the gates for the Death Eaters waiting outside, and the invasion of Hogwarts castle began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** I’m a little sorry to leave it on another cliffhanger, but even getting this far was like pulling teeth. I had a good 90% of this chapter done weeks ago, but I hit a solid wall where I couldn’t write more than a few dozen words without just lying down and wanting to sleep instead of work on it. 
> 
> Also contributing was that I managed to bust the screen of a month-old laptop and had to buy another new one. Not fun.
> 
> There was a bunch of fight scenes in this chapter, most of which I’m not all that confident in, so let me know which worked for you, and which didn’t?
> 
> Final note, yep, Genma summons bears. Specifically, he usually summons polar bears, although technically he could summon any bear. The Polar Bears are the ones who share his water affinity though, so he generally gets along best with them.


	12. Determination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. This was delayed, wasn’t it. Um. Welcome back, and sorry for leaving you dangling off that cliff for so long. This was sitting done for a month before I could post it, because I’ve managed to bust my laptop. And now I’ve cracked my phone. Ugh.

Ron glared across the fire at the Iwa hunter squad. All of them sat there, laughing raucously at his “pathetic” killing intent as he inched a hand slowly closer to his right sandal, and the tiny knife they had overlooked when searching him, praying they didn’t pay him enough attention to notice what he was doing. He needn’t have worried—they were arrogant enough that they hadn’t even posted a guard, and all of them were so close to the fire that they couldn’t possibly see further than the ring of light extended. 

He had just closed his fingers around the knife’s handle when he heard a rushing noise, and a wave crashed down onto the fire and the four kidnappers. Their shouts of surprise and the hissing of the doused fire covered him hastily withdrawing the blade and cutting his legs free. Before he could twist the knife to free his hands, the ropes there suddenly fell away, and an arm wrapped around his waist. He began to struggle, but a hissed “ _Stay still!_ ” and the click of teeth on steel made him freeze. 

“Genma-sensei…” he breathed. Genma covered Ron’s mouth with one hand as he backed slowly away, speed increasing.

“What’s the matter with you all?” barked the voice of the kunoichi who had taken him. “It’s not that difficult to strike a light! Shakuton: Kajousatsu!” The darkness was pushed back by the pinkish fireballs that sprang into being at her command, but the hissing noise increased tenfold as the water flooding the campsite evaporated all at once, neatly covering their escape.

Genma gave a chuckle deep in his throat as he made his way around the camp, still holding Ron. “This is why you use Jinnei Hikari no jutsu when you need to see at night,” he whispered. The ‘camp light’ was a simple katon jutsu, akin to striking a match. 

“Are you hurt?” Genma added, as they came to a stop by a huge white rock. Ron shook his head, but Genma’s sharply indrawn breath kept him silent. “ _Where did they go?_ ” he demanded in a low strangled voice.

“Helping,” came a sarcastic, huffed reply. The rock extended a furry limb to point in a direction just away from the camp, the opposite way from which Genma and Ron had come. At the same time, they heard another cry from the Iwa nin in the same direction. Belatedly, Ron realized that the ‘rock’ was an enormous crouching polar bear, and he nearly whimpered as Genma dropped him unceremoniously beside it.

With a curse, Genma vanished again. But ‘they’ were missing while ‘helping’, Ron realized, his fear fading slightly as the bear did not move. Which presumably meant Harry and Hermione. The two of them must have tried to sneak closer in case Genma needed backup freeing Ron. Stupid, but not surprising. And now they needed help themselves. Ron got instantly to his feet, but a sudden weight against his knees made him look down. A gigantic paw was held in front of him.

“Genma-dono does not need his attention split another way,” the bear rumbled.

“My team needs help!” Ron exclaimed quietly, as if that explained everything. And really, didn’t it?

“Already they return,” the bear replied. “Climb up on my back.”

Ron hesitated, looking toward the direction where Genma had disappeared, when suddenly the world tilted, and he grabbed a handful of white fur to not fall over. The bear had scooped him up with its neck, and a moment later, he felt Hermione’s arms around his waist, and Harry’s around hers, as they were deposited behind him.

“Move!” Genma growled, and the three of them were almost unseated as their furry conveyance shot away.

* * *

The battle had been short, but intense, and Harry couldn’t believe how quickly it had spiralled out of hand. One moment, he and Hermione were creeping closer, having counted all four enemy at the fireside and realizing they had nobody on watch. The next, all light had vanished, and Harry’s foot caught a tripwire, sending him crashing to the ground. There were shouts from the camp, and flickering, palely-red light illuminated the area, revealing a thick mist that had appeared from nowhere. Hermione dragged him back to his feet, and they both backpedaled rapidly, aware that they needed to put space between themselves and the noise Harry had made, but not carrying the thought far enough to realize that ‘farther away’ was exactly where the enemy would look for them.

By the time this occurred to Harry, he was already frantically trying to dodge, and too distracted to even shout for help. The enemy’s half-seen fists were glancing off him every few seconds, and from what he could hear, Hermione was likewise occupied. The two of them were acting on pure recently-ingrained instinct, doing their best to return blows against the two large Iwa-nin, but it was clear that they were outclassed as the hits kept raining in.

Then there was the sound of a body slumping to the ground, and his heart plummeted. “That’ll be your friend caught,” the man he was fighting growled. “And you’ll be next.” Harry aimed a palm strike in the direction of the voice, but hit nothing as the enemy slid smoothly underground. Harry whirled on the spot, trying wildly to see an attack coming through the mist and the dark.

There was a flash of some kind under him, and he flung himself away as hands burst from the ground where he had been standing, groping for his ankles. They vanished again quickly as he lay still, praying that he couldn’t be found if he didn’t move, and wondering desperately if Hermione was all right. Another flicker made him jerk around, rolling back to his feet. 

The silhouette of the man he’d fought was behind him, but before Harry could even react, the enemy crumpled to the ground. Behind him stood the familiar, but blank-faced figure of Genma, who hissed, “ _Fool!_ ” and grabbed his arm. There was an almighty wrench, which nearly pulled Harry’s arm from its socket, and suddenly they were back beside Kumakita. Genma all but flung Hermione off his shoulders and onto the bear, where Ron already sat. An instant later, Harry was thrown up behind her.

They barely had time to grab hold as the bear took them from the scene, Genma flickering in and out of sight beside them, still growling imprecations under his breath.

* * *

This went on for hours as they quickly approached the border, until Genma suddenly stumbled and fell. Kumakita skidded to a halt, claws digging trenches in the earth, and the three students jumped down at once. Genma was facedown, panting hard, but fortunately still conscious.

“Keep going,” he croaked as they knelt beside him, but they ignored him.

Instead, they picked him up between them and wordlessly deposited him on Kumakita’s back, where he wound his fingers into the fur. They had to move slower after that, since Genma would have fallen at high speed and none of the students could perform Shunshin, but they managed to leave the land of Earth behind them by dawn.

They were all exhausted, but also unwilling to stop, so they forced themselves onward, Kumakita slowing more and more along with them as fatigue caught up with even the huge bear. By the time Kumakita led them back to the place where he had been summoned, and where they had dropped their backpacks, all of them were stumbling and could go no further. Kumakita flopped down, and they leaned themselves and Genma against him, listening to the sound of the great bear’s heavy breathing and pounding heart.

When Kumakita spoke, they felt the rumble against their backs. “I can remain awake. You should rest. We will have to run again in a few hours.” The students were all asleep before he even finished.

“Insubordinate little brats,” Genma breathed, cracking an eye open to look at his deshi, Harry’s and Hermione’s heads resting on either of Ron’s shoulders.

Kumakita huffed an ursine chuckle. “Your cubs are brave and loyal.”

“To a fault,” Genma groaned, almost too tired to keep the senbon in his mouth.

“Such is the fatal flaw of Konoha-nin,” Kumakita mused.

Genma gave a weak snort, his eye closing once more. “Not too long, Kumakita,” he mumbled, and the bear rumbled an assent.

* * *

The sun was still high when Kumakita woke them by vanishing, his summoning ended. Their support suddenly gone, the three students tumbled to the ground, rudely awakened. Harry was just rubbing the sleep from his eyes when he froze, as the air around him seemed to fill with tension. It wasn’t paralyzing, but he looked up in alarm to see Genma leaning against a tree a short distance away, glaring down at the three of them.

“Sensei,” he said, a quiet acknowledgement.

The fury in the air intensified, and Ron and Hermione both drew back slightly, though Harry did not move.

“You call me sensei, yet you think you know better than me,” Genma said. His voice was quite as drawling as ever, but his eyes told the whole story. He was furious. “I’ve told you that other squads could be months in taking their first mission outside the village, and I told Hokage-sama that you three were ready. Yet at the first sign of trouble, I find you rushing off against my explicit instructions.”

Neither Harry nor Ron said anything, so Hermione spoke up. “You also told us that Konoha prizes teamwork above all else.” She quailed as Genma’s eyes bored into hers.

Genma snorted. “You can keep pace with a couple of genin and you think you’re ready to tangle with Iwa hunter-killers? The only help you could have offered was to stay put, so I wouldn’t have to risk going back for you. Exactly as I _told_ you to!” His voice was still low, but the pressure in the air cranked ever higher, and his voice was intense.

Harry stared up at Genma for another moment, speechless, then twisted his knees under him to sit seiza. He bowed forward, nearly pressing his forehead to the leaf-strewn forest floor. “I’m sorry, Sensei,” he said simply. The other two echoed him, even though Ron hadn’t technically done anything wrong.

There was a pregnant silence, then the tension abruptly drained from the air. They all sat up slowly, remaining in seiza, waiting for orders. Genma chewed his senbon for a moment, and when he spoke, the anger had bled out of his tone. “Genma's Rule Number Nine: Be able to take orders. I understand you’re independent thinkers and I prize that, but there are limits. You three are shinobi and I am your commanding officer; that denotes a measure of authority. I do not like barking instructions, but when I give one, I expect it to be obeyed.”

“Yes, Sensei,” they murmured together.

Genma turned away to stare westward. “With any luck, they've given up. But I don’t want to squander what lead we have. We need to get deeper into Fire country, fast.”

There were no more words spoken as they retrieved their packs—dropped when the team was attached by the Iwa kunoichi, what seemed so long ago. 

It was a few hours’ silent travel before Harry found the nerve to break the silence.

“Sensei?” he asked hesitantly.

“Mm?” Genma seemed to have largely gotten his displeasure out of his system, because his voice had regained its usual lazy quality.

“I wanted to ask you about…something that happened during my fight,” Harry said awkwardly.

Genma just nodded for him to continue.

“Well, er…” he scrambled for the right words to describe the repeated flashes of not-light he thought he remembered. 

Genma looked mildly surprised at his fumbling explanation, and when Harry at last fell silent, he said, slowly, “That sounds like a chakra sense, Harry-kun.” He chewed his senbon a moment, then sighed. “I’m not a Sensor-type myself, so there’s a limit to the help I’ll be able to offer. Maybe Inoichi can spare some additional time to work with you on that.”

Harry nodded, accepting this. Frustrating though their Occlumency sessions were, he rather liked Inoichi’s calm manner, and Genma’s brief summary of a chakra sense did seem to fit with what he had felt. 

And was currently feeling, he recognized, now that he knew what it was. Quite aside from seeing them, or his awareness of them by their scents and quiet movements—something he knew he would never have noticed before their training—he could also _feel_ something from each of his teammates, like a slight glimmer from just past the corner of his eye. He had to focus hard to interpret what he realized he was _sensing_ : Ron’s chakra felt different to Hermione’s; his was sharper somehow, and more frantic, while hers was steadier and smoother, but he could feel them both, reassuring him that his teammates, his partners, were with him.

Genma, by contrast, was all but invisible to his new sense. When Harry asked about it, he merely shrugged. “ANBU are trained to suppress their chakra,” he drawled, senbon clacking as usual. “Hard to melt into the shadows if anyone sensitive to chakra can point straight at you. It’s a habit I never got out of.”

“Is there any drawback to suppressing your chakra, Sensei?” Hermione asked, still a little timid after their dressing-down.

Genma considered the question for a moment before replying. They were growing used to this—it was a quirk of Genma’s that he would prefer to give a precise answer after a pause than a stumbling explanation—so they no longer often wondered whether he would refuse to answer.

“Suppressing and controlling are more like two different things,” he said finally. “What I am actually doing is tightly regulating my chakra so that I don’t broadcast any, while still using it internally to energize myself.” Being that they were currently tree-hopping, this made sense. “I cannot use any jutsu without calling up a good deal more chakra, but on the other hand, only a very talented sensor or someone very familiar with me could still discover me like this. I am still _using_ chakra, after all, but Harry-kun is too inexperienced with his new talent to sense it. Contrarily, I _can_ fully suppress my chakra so as to disappear, but that requires concentration and additionally would make jutsu impossible to perform until I let it circulate through my entire body again, so it’s a risky maneuver.” He tilted his head the other way. “But if the alternative is being detected on an infiltration…” He ended on a shrug, leaving them to ponder his words as he often did, though he began to let some chakra slip out so that Harry could grow familiar with it. Genma’s chakra felt cool and fluid, and Harry soon felt confident that he would be able to recognize any of them by _feel_.

* * *

They met with their replacements halfway back to Konoha. Genma had decided the previous night that they were deep enough in Fire Country that they could have a good campfire. This was a comfort in both light and warmth, and simply meant that whoever was on watch would have to be far enough outside the ring of firelight that their night vision wasn’t destroyed. Genma himself pulled an eyepatch from his pack and fitted it over his left eye with no explanations. It was during Harry’s watch—he had drawn the first again—that he sensed someone approaching, a blurry flicker at the edge of his developing chakra sense. _Several someones_ , he mentally corrected. They had seemed like one chakra source at range, but he was able to distinguish slight variants as they approached.

He drew a kunai and gave a screechy whistle, imitating a tiny Fire Country wood owl; that night’s chosen signal for ‘intruders, multiple’. Genma was at his side immediately, lifting the eyepatch whose purpose was suddenly clear, and he could feel Ron and Hermione waking and readying more slowly.

“…Six, I think,” he hissed to Genma, pointing. “Stronger than us, but hiding.”

Genma held a tiger seal, then pursed his lips and blew out a stream of water, which formed a water clone. The clone leapt off in the direction Harry had indicated.

A moment later, they heard another bird call, presumably from the clone, indicating ‘all clear’. Genma relaxed very slightly, and Harry did too, trusting his sensei not to test them after the ordeal this mission had become. Genma _was_ a fan of surprising his students to keep them on their toes, but this wasn’t the time.

The chakra signals Harry had sensed drew nearer, seeming less… _blurry_ as they did, coming into focus like an object approaching a sheet of frosted glass. Then, with no warning except Harry’s, six ANBU seemed to materialize at the edge of their clearing, without their usual cloaks. None of them had weapons drawn, and none made any sound or move to draw nearer. The one who seemed to be the leader reached into his pocket with exaggerated motions, drawing out a scroll sealed with red wax and the Hokage’s personal mark, which he tossed forward. Genma caught it, passed a hand over it, then handed it to Harry, never taking his eyes off the newcomers.

Understanding the silent instruction, Harry broke the seal and read the scroll quickly. “Hokage-sama approves our actions and urges discretion. If we must kill…” Harry swallowed. “…lay the trail toward Rain if necessary. Cat, Lizard, Crane, Owl, Grasshopper, and captain Boar are sent to assist us, and the latter four to take up our original mission.” He glanced up from the scroll to see Genma and the ANBU exchanging handtalk too fast for him to follow. “That’s all.”

Genma nodded, finally relaxing fully and looking away from the ANBU squad for the first time since they appeared. “Hokage-sama is always succinct in his orders,” he said. “And that seal indicated that the orders are genuine.” He glanced at Boar. “Come in to the camp; we no longer need backup, but I need to brief you on what happened.”

* * *

“…and together we retrieved Ron-kun, meeting your relief squad on the way back,” Genma concluded. 

The Hokage said nothing for a while, merely watching the three English genin shifting awkwardly under his gaze. When he finally spoke, he said only, “Genin Potter, Weasley, and Granger, you are dismissed. Take tomorrow for rest and meet your sensei as usual the next morning.”

They bowed, and made to leave, but Genma stopped them. “To the hospital, all of you. Standard procedure unless you've got a medic on the team. No excuses.”

With a chanted “Yes, Sensei,” they trooped out. 

As the door shut behind them, then heard the Hokage murmur, “Standard procedure? If only I could get my jonin to believe that…” Genma only laughed.

Despite this, Hermione insisted they visit the hospital anyway. “I think we’ve disobeyed orders enough.”

“I still think he was too harsh,” Harry mumbled mutinously. “He’s the one who said he was proud of our teamwork.”

“Yes, but honestly, Harry…” Harry and Ron exchanged a grin at the resurgence of Hermione’s favourite word. “You also can’t deny he was right when he said we were outclassed. What we did was like if we tried to go after the Stone back in first year without our wands, or–”

“Or only knowing first-year magic?” Ron asked quietly. He was trailing a little behind the other two, looking uncharacteristically pensive. “You ever realize how lucky we’ve been?” he added, when he noticed Harry and Hermione looking back at him. “Maybe a lot of things come down to luck in the end, but have we ever really come up against something we flat-out couldn’t do?”

“You mean besides Divination?” Harry asked, half-glancing at Hermione, who sniffed disdainfully.

Ron snorted. “I mean it,” he said seriously. “The closest we’ve come to an insurmountable obstacle was figuring out the basilisk and the Second Task, and both times, the solution was waiting for us.”

He had evidently given this a great deal of thought. “What’re you getting at?” Harry asked him as they entered the hospital.

“Just…back in England it's usually a pretty fair game. Even when we get in over our heads, we’ve got a chance. But here…there’s so much stuff we haven’t even heard of, and everyone is so much _better_ than us. It’s like a game of chess where all you have are three pawns and the opponent has all queens.” He fell silent as Hermione spoke to the receptionist.

A few moments later, they were brought to a small examination room and told to wait on the next available Iryo-nin. They sat in comfortable silence for a while, each contemplating Ron’s words.

“I guess…it just means we’ve got to keep training and getting stronger,” Harry said eventually, as though there had been no gap in the conversation. “But at the same time…” His gloves creaked as his fists clenched, and he trailed off. “I’ve been meaning to tell you two,” he began instead, and filled them in on his conversation with Genma the night before the mission. “I want to be stronger,” he finished a little while later. “But not a killer.”

“Sometimes it strikes me that Sensei is a killer,” Hermione said in a small voice, staring out the window. “That all of our sensei have killed. And yet…I can’t think of them the same as Voldemort.”

Ron flinched at the sound of the name, but to his credit, it was far smaller than it would have been just a few months ago. He didn't speak.

Harry hummed in agreement, a habit he realized he’d picked up from Genma. “But like Sensei said, it’s a choice we have to make every time. I’m just making the choice now.”

“What about You-Know-Who, though?” Ron asked, still subdued.

“There is a difference between soldiers following orders and a monster like Voldemort,” Harry growled. Then he sighed. “But even him…I’d rather see him thrown in Azkaban than kill him.”

“But what if there was no choice?” Ron pressed him.

“There is _always_ a choice, Ron!” Hermione snapped.

Harry waved a hand to calm her down and defuse the potential bickering by drawing their attention back onto himself. “That’s my point,” he said softly. “That’s why we’re better than the Death Eaters, mate.”

Ron was silent a moment before he nodded, though he continued to rebut, “Sensei would say he’d sooner kill than see us die.”

“But he doesn’t _need_ to kill,” Hermione replied. There was no anger anymore, they were merely debating. “Maybe he was fighting to kill in his first battle against that Iwa kunoichi, but his priority later was rescue, and he didn’t kill any of them when he went in to get you, or when he came back for us.”

“Seeing Sensei mad was scary,” Ron said, changing the topic. “And it wasn’t even aimed at me.”

“I didn’t think he even had a temper,” Harry chuckled, and the other two grinned.

Further conversation was halted as the door opened and a rather large medic-nin entered, followed by a trainee. The medic introduced himself as Ugai, and his apprentice—a pretty girl only a few years older than them—as Kasa. With their permission, he went on to rumble, he would prefer Kasa to handle their examinations as a test in her apprenticeship.

Harry and Ron shrugged, nodding. Hermione looked about to object, but Kasa had already moved over to Ron, flipping through hand seals. Rat, Ram, what looked like a modified Ox, then Tiger. Her hands glowed with a pale light as she passed them over Ron’s head and shoulders, not quite touching him.

This, Ugai narrated, was the Chiyu Kensa no jutsu—the ‘Healing Scan’—which would discover and diagnose any abnormalities that needed to be healed. A moment later, Kasa finished with Ron, offering that he had a chipped tooth and several bruises, and needed a good meal to regain his chakra. Ugai confirmed this, laying his own glowing palm on Ron’s head for a moment. After a moment, he shifted his attention to the bruise on Ron’s cheek, and the glow on his hand shifted to a soothing green. He had used no hand seals, so Harry turned his attention back to Kasa as she scanned Hermione.

Hermione, too, was free of injuries, though Kasa this time recommended a floral tea with dinner, due to an accumulation of stress hormones. Once more, Ugai concurred.

Harry watched Kasa’s hands intently as she neared him, fingers itching to mimic her movements…but the thought of what Genma would say if he caught Harry testing undoubtedly complex jutsu without first asking for help dissuaded him. Still, he thought he understood the modification to the Ox seal. If he folded down the second and third fingers…

“Stop by during your free time and you can apply for a part-time apprenticeship with your sensei’s permission,” Kasa told him, smiling slightly. “You are also well, my friend.”

“Thrilling,” hummed Ugai as he checked behind her, then finished healing Ron. “There is always demand for Iryo-nin. Now, you are all dismissed, and be sure you eat well!” He shooed them out, smiling.

Outside on the street, they looked at each other, wordlessly deciding to eat dinner together. They walked a little ways to a restaurant Genma had mentioned once, nodding to the crutch-bound retired proprietor.

They were led to a booth in the back wall, only one space from the end. Kurenai sat in the corner booth, and they bowed before seating themselves. The sounds of the restaurant were muted slightly as they sat down, and Hermione immediately twisted in her seat to examine the carvings over her head. They looked decorative, but Harry thought he could feel the tiniest flicker of chakra from them.

“These are similar to the seals in the Dead Room,” Hermione muttered. “I’ve got to look these up…”

“Think there’s a proper library here?” Ron asked.

“There must be, city this size,” Harry said thoughtfully. “Maybe ask Sensei about it when I ask about the hospital,” he offered to Hermione, and she nodded.

“The seals remind me a bit of Ancient Runes,” she said pensively. “Maybe there’s a connection there between chakra and magic?”

“The runes I saw you studying last year didn’t look Japanese,” Ron said, confused.

“No, those were based on the Elder Futhark, but the system for control and activation of runic magic seems very similar. For instance,” she turned to Harry, “Did you see the seal when Sensei did his summoning?”

“No,” said Harry honestly. “I was a bit distracted by the massive great bear.” Ron laughed. Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Well, there was,” she huffed. “A very complex seal appeared for a moment when he slammed his hand down, then there was a plume of chakra smoke, and the creature appeared. I’d imagine the seal helps to determine what and who you summon, the same way that a different runic matrix would produce heat or a binding field.”

“Wonder if we can learn to summon?” Ron said, plainly following his own train of thought.

“You’d need to find a summon animal willing to let you sign its contract,” Hermione answered at once. “And there are only so many. Each village has certain ones, supposedly, though not all the summon species mentioned in the histories and legends are accounted for. Konoha is known for the toads, the slugs, and the snakes, but those are possessed by the Sannin.”

“Read all that already?” Harry smiled.

“No such thing as useless knowledge,” Hermione shot back. Then, since Ron appeared to be sulking over his chances of obtaining a summoning contract, she offered, “There are also individual contacts, to summon a specific creature instead of a species. Kakashi is known for his pack of dog summons, but as far as anyone knows, there is no overarching canine contract.”

Ron looked marginally happier, and their discussion of which animal they might be compatible with lasted most of the night.

* * *

They were relegated to D-ranks for the rest of the following week, and the pace of their training redoubled, but none of them raised any complaints. The nightmare of a C-rank mission underlined just how outclassed the three of them were, and they were all determined to redress the balance somewhat. Still, there were other good things that had come from the failed mission—for one, it hadn’t been marked as ‘failed’ on their records, simply an approved tactical withdrawal. Harry had discovered not only a new sense to explore—Inoichi was quite pleased with his progress—but was also fascinated with iryojutsu and tried to find a little time each day to visit the hospital.

Ron had visited Tenten’s family’s weapon shop—which he could now identify as _Kotetsu Ryuu_ or ‘Steel Dragon’ thanks to the finally-improved translation charm—to get a new sword which he could use with less worry of accidentally striking a killing blow. He’d had to put in a custom order, which had baffled Tenten with its description until her father grunted the single word “Sakabatou”, giving the red-haired boy a considering look. He and Ron dickered good-naturedly over the final price, and Ron happily left a down-payment.

Hermione, meanwhile, they had hardly seen outside training since Kurenai-sensei had offered her a library pass, and she was looking up all that she could find on fuuinjutsu. Genma was amused, and encouraged her to practice, but made her promise solemnly not to attempt any genuine seals until he could obtain a teacher—“Seals are not to be toyed with, Hermione-chan. One wobbly arc or misplaced line, and a simple storage seal may take off your hands, or a ten-second detonation fuse might become a tenth-second.”

The three of them were also called upon to meet with the Hokage and an ANBU wearing what looked like a peacock mask, who was apparently the Bingo Book’s official sketch artist. Between them, they provided a description of the Iwa bomber, Deidara—“No, the nose was shorter, and his fringe came down to _there_ ”—to which Genma added some details they hadn’t noticed—“Yes, I mean actual _mouths_ on his hands. With tongues.”

Genma also gave a description of the kunoichi he had fought, talking right through the stunned silence when he mentioned her using Shakuton—“In a way, I’m not even surprised; she looked _just_ like her, even down to the hair. Dead ringer, I swear.” None of them, not even Genma, would explain who they were referring to, so they only had Hermione’s assumption that Shakuton must be a rare kekkei genkai. Further discussion was stymied when Genma clapped his hands and declared that they were due for another D-rank, vanishing in a Shunshin before they could even groan.

The passing time also brought its own worries, however; not the least of which was that they hadn’t heard from Hogwarts, and the new school term was fast approaching. Still, this concern was driven out of their heads late one Saturday. It was lunchtime, and the three of them were just leaving Ichiraku’s when Harry paused, shutting his eyes and turning to face toward the gate. “What the…?” he muttered. 

There was a glare on his chakra sense, like someone had unshuttered a spotlight, and it was incredibly distracting. When he began moving toward it, he felt Ron and Hermione fall into step behind him but every other chakra signature that he had vaguely felt was now completely overshadowed.

The source of the incredible not-light turned out to be Naruto, who concealed both his teammates until Harry was almost near enough to touch them. They were all hunched with exhaustion, waiting for Kakashi to sign them in at the guard gate, and there seemed to be a pall hanging over the group.

“You three all right?” Ron asked as they drew level.

“Huh?” said Naruto, plainly distracted. “Oh. Um, yeah. Thanks…” He blinked, apparently mostly lost in his own thoughts.

“Mission get tough?” Harry asked quietly. The three kids looked about how he had felt when the ANBU squad had found them. Sasuke just nodded.

Hermione moved forward, resting a hand on Sakura’s shoulder until the roseate girl finally looked up and focused on her face. She spoke quietly, and Sakura whispered something back. Harry looked at Ron, then jerked his head at Naruto. Ron nodded, and launched into a story about the sword he had ordered. Naruto, as ever, perked up at the mention of ninja tools, becoming more animated. Harry simply stood beside Sasuke, close enough to brush shoulders, watching Kakashi bantering with the gate guards—two chunin that Harry recognized on sight and by their chakra, but whose names he couldn’t recall.

At length Kakashi turned, giving Harry’s team an eye smile for engaging his students, but gathering them up again so they could report. The genin still looked drawn, but seemed less grim than they had. At the last moment, Harry nudged Sasuke, and murmured, too softly for anyone else to hear, “I’ll come round for dinner?” 

Sasuke blinked at him, then gave a tiny nod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N** : Genma wasn’t quite as exhausted as Kakashi was in the Land of Waves, since he isn’t using anything foreign to him (i.e. the sharingan), but he’s still drained from all the crap he had to do. (Two summonings plus two fights plus repeated shunshins equals tired ninja even for jonin, and he was crashing from a soldier pill ending.)  
>  If he seemed uncharacteristically harsh in his reprimand, I hope you realize it’s out of concern for them (and the fact that the two of them sneaking off to help _in direct violation of their last spoken orders_ is insubordination and could have seen them benched from missions or even jailed once they returned to Konoha if he was so inclined.)
> 
> Ugai is a canonical Konoha medic. Kasa is an OC name meaning ‘umbrella’. Neither is likely to be important to the story. A Sakabatō is a ‘reverse-blade sword’ (thank you _Rurouni Kenshin_ ).
> 
> I’m still toying with the timeline here, so it’s kinda compressed. But! The kids are back. Harry will get the story next time, and I expect we’ll start the Chunin exams pretty soon. (Remember that Team Genma isn’t taking them, so their focus will be on something else…or rather, on several some _ones_ else.) 
> 
> Finally, it occurred to me that you nice folks might want a compilation of Genma's Rules. Or, at least, the ones revealed so far in-story. (Oh, yes, there are more.) Without further ado:
>
>> 6\. Always be aware of your surroundings.  
>  7\. There is no such thing as useless knowledge.  
>  8\. Prepare for everything, before it is too late to prepare for anything.  
>  9\. Be able to take orders.  
>  11\. Always have a plan.  
>  23⅓. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. [May not be a real rule.]  
>  24\. If you lose control, you’re already dead.  
>  25\. Don’t waste time.
> 
>   
> If you need a more detailed explanation of any of the rules, don't hesitate to ask. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please remember to feed the author!
> 
> All this Japanese and Latin is kicking my ass. I barely consider myself to have a proper handle on English...
> 
> Thanks for joining me; hope you enjoy the ride.


End file.
